Book Image

Getting Started with Python

By : Fabrizio Romano, Benjamin Baka, Dusty Phillips
Book Image

Getting Started with Python

By: Fabrizio Romano, Benjamin Baka, Dusty Phillips

Overview of this book

This Learning Path helps you get comfortable with the world of Python. It starts with a thorough and practical introduction to Python. You’ll quickly start writing programs, building websites, and working with data by harnessing Python's renowned data science libraries. With the power of linked lists, binary searches, and sorting algorithms, you'll easily create complex data structures, such as graphs, stacks, and queues. After understanding cooperative inheritance, you'll expertly raise, handle, and manipulate exceptions. You will effortlessly integrate the object-oriented and not-so-object-oriented aspects of Python, and create maintainable applications using higher level design patterns. Once you’ve covered core topics, you’ll understand the joy of unit testing and just how easy it is to create unit tests. By the end of this Learning Path, you will have built components that are easy to understand, debug, and can be used across different applications. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Learn Python Programming - Second Edition by Fabrizio Romano • Python Data Structures and Algorithms by Benjamin Baka • Python 3 Object-Oriented Programming by Dusty Phillips
Table of Contents (31 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
8
Stacks and Queues
10
Hashing and Symbol Tables
Index

Queues


Another special type of list is the queue data structure. This data structure is no different from the regular queue you are accustomed to in real life. If you have stood in line at an airport or to be served your favorite burger at your neighborhood shop, then you should know how things work in a queue.

Queues are also a very fundamental and important concept to grasp since many other data structures are built on them.

The way a queue works is that the first person to join the queue usually gets served first, all things being equal. The acronym FIFO best explains this. FIFO stands for first in, first out. When people are standing in a queue waiting for their turn to be served, service is only rendered at the front of the queue. The only time people exit the queue is when they have been served, which only occurs at the very front of the queue. By strict definition, it is illegal for people to join the queue at the front where people are being served:

To join the queue, participants must...