Might be helpful to provide a reference to a comparison of other scripting languages that indicate why one should prefer Python over Perl, ksh, etc,. for this type of work.

I agree with the above comment and would add that this is probably a good place to try to delve a little further into the idea of what makes a scripting language a scripting language. What's a script? When is a script a script and not a program? Some have tried to draw the line at whether the program/script is interpreted or compiled - but where does that leave Java (and I don't mean JavaScript)? Java certainly calls itself a programming language and perhaps rightly so, but it's compiled at one level and interpreted at another. Sun deftly sidesteps any slow-sounding terminology such as "interpreted", but a JVM is really just a script interpreter isn't it? Is PERL a programming language or a scripting language? It's not always black & white, of course, but maybe some more contrasts and parallels would be helpful here.

It would be helpful (or would have been for me) to add one paragraph that explicitly states how to execute each of the example programs. I.e.

cd to the indicated chapter (explaining how this is indicated), then execute the program with:

python program-name

It would be helpful to add one of more examples of very large projects that are written first in Python (with only 20 % of code rewritten in C during the optimization phase). I think Google and Zope are such examples.

I do not care whether some language is called a scripting language or a programming language when it suits the task on hand admirably.