First of all, some of the books you mentioned are written with examples in multiple programming languages. For example, GOF's DP is written with C++ and, if fewer, Smalltalk examples, and TDD is written with Java and Python examples.

If you are well trained in picking up what's useful, dropping what's not, and translating what you've picked up, you'll benefit from reading most of generally recommended books for programmers. However, if you have little experience in doing this, you could start from "near-transfer" books. Otherwise, you will learn very little, or even you will learn bad ideas and habits -- some of the practices are language-paradigm dependent. I have seen a good deal of Python programmers with all the hassles for implementing GOF's DP in C++.

Transfer is psychological and educational term for applying what you have learned in a different context. They differentiate between near and far transfer. Usually near-transfer is easier and more effective, which means you need to put more effort for far-transfer.

For near-transfer learning, I highly recommend learning from similar languages, in terms of its paradigm, to your target language -- siblings in the language typology. For Python, that would be something like Smalltalk -- or nowadays Ruby but Smalltalk's legacy is greater.

For instance, you will learn a lot more from reading DPSC than from solely reading GOF's DP. (BTW, reading both DPSC and GOF's DP at the same time with careful contrasting and comparing is a very rewarding learning experience)

From my near-transfer experiences, I remember leaps of improvement in my Python programming from reading books(articles, papers, and etc) for Smalltalk, APL, Io, and ICON, all of which are dynamic in nature.

Are programming books in other languages useful for Python?
I am looking for very simple bash script that would allow me to launch a process a few times. What's essential to me is that after the processes terminate, everything will clean up automatically.

Intended usage:

bash multiplerun.sh 5 executable.sh parameters_to_executable


I could probably write it myself, but it would take me so long that I've decided to ask experts; I'm very little skilled at using *ix systems.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to add that I want to run them in parallel - running them one after another is pretty straightforward.
