This book assumes that you have some programming experience, though not necessarily with Python. It shows you a lot of code up front and then walks you through it step by step. You dive right in, hence the name. I found Mark Pilgrims writing clear and concise. I had a lot of fun with this book. I think it’s a great way to learn Python. I’m interested to read some of his other books.

In my opinion, one of the best books to learn python when you already know other languages like java and c++. It skips the details of loops, variables, etc and brings you up to speed on the powerful features of python that you want to use.