Should reference to old books be retained?

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A question on the help channel asked about a reference to a "twenty year old book," but didn't specify it. I assume the poster was referring to Mark Lutz's book. I realize that book has a place in Python history as perhaps the first widely read book on Python, but should it still be afforded more-or-less first class status as Python reference material? I don't know when it was last updated, so maybe it's up-to-date and the link just needs to be corrected, but if not, perhaps we should continue ourselves to more recent, online, sources which better match the current language.

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The poster confirmed they meant the 23-year-old "Python and Tkinter Programming" and provided a Amazon link to the 2000 book by John Grayson.

However, the book by that title mentioned at https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.html is:

Python and Tkinter Programming
By Alan Moore. (ISBN 978-1788835886)

Published May 2018.

So this is a misunderstanding.

Whilst we're here, let's consider the Lutz book. Its website says:

release 1.4 of the book's examples package works with Pythons 3.0 through 3.10, and likely later [...] .Also note that most book examples will run unchanged under 3.3 through 3.10;

And provides a list of some changes that may be needed. So sounds like this book can still has value.

I don't think there's anything to do here, but thanks for raising!

Or rather, there is a problem here:

However, the book by that title mentioned at docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.html is:

Python and Tkinter Programming
By Alan Moore. (ISBN 978-1788835886)

This links to Python GUI programming with Tkinter by Alan D. Moore.

So the link and author is good, but the title is wrong. The books section was updated in 2021 in #27838 and looks like there was a mixup. So let's re-open this to fix it, and review the others.

Please see PR #112490 to fix it. The other titles and ISBNs are correct.

gh-110930: Correct book title by Alan D. Moore (#112490)

pythongh-110930: Correct book title by Alan D. Moore (pythonGH-112490)

[3.12] gh-110930: Correct book title by Alan D. Moore (GH-112490) (#1…

[3.11] gh-110930: Correct book title by Alan D. Moore (GH-112490) (#1…

pythongh-110930: Correct book title by Alan D. Moore (python#112490)

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Should reference to old books be retained? #110930

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dKosarevsky commented on Oct 16, 2023

smontanaro commented on Oct 16, 2023

hugovk commented on Nov 28, 2023

hugovk commented on Nov 28, 2023

hugovk commented on Nov 28, 2023

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