Gray Hat Python
I received Grey Hat Python by Justin Seitz this week for my birthday — thanks sis! So far I’ve worked into Chapter 3: Building a Windows Debugger.
I’m very pleased with the level of detail the book goes into when explaining debugging techniques and how a CPU deals with processes. It almost makes me want to focus more on C code, but I know that the further I get into the book the more I will be happy with the relative simplicity offered by Python.
My only gripe with the book is the first sentence of the first paragraph on section 1.1, “I assume that you are using a 32-bit Windows-based platform to do most of your coding.” While it certainly makes sense to focus on debugging techniques on the Windows platform since most of the software one would be dealing with is written for it, it rubs me the wrong way to make the assumption that I’m using Windows to write software — especially with a language like Python. And no, I’ll be writing code primarily with vim on OSX and running Python on Windows via Parallels.
With that only negative note aside, it’s a fantastic book and I would absolutely recommend it to others.