On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 18:50, Dotan Cohen <dotanco...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2009/1/11 Sandro Tosi <matrixh...@gmail.com>: >>> I would suggest at least a chapter on _acquiring_ the data that is to >>> be plotted using Python to scrape different sources _not_designed_ to >>> be scraped. Online webpages come to mind. An example on retrieving, >>> for instance, the prices of varying currencies, parsing the HTML >>> pages, extracting the data, and then plotting it would be a great >>> example for a real worlds usage that show matplotlib as a tool in a >>> toolchain, not a means to an end. >> >> Well, a whole chapter to this is a little too much, but such examples >> will be presented in the book: we're not going to teach how to program >> in Python, but how to use matplotlib, so the data retriving is a >> little out-of-scope (or at least border-line), so the code will be in >> the examples provided along with the book, but not deeply explained in >> the book text. > > The problem with that approach is that you limit your audience to people who: > 1) Are interested in matplotlab > -AND- > 2) Are already familiar with Python
That is exactly the target the editor wants to reach... > For every AND clause you remove you broaden the book's audience. You > do not need to rewrite the book on Python programming or programming > in general, but getting a C or even PHP programmer up to speed on the > basics of Python as related to matplotlib will make the book much more > accessible. At a minimum, it will add another valuable chapter to the > book that can be safely ignored by Python gurus. And you are making > the book that much more accessible. I will try to ask this, but they were really clear that knowing python is a prerequisite of the book readers. -- Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu) My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/ Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list