Book Image

Secret Recipes of the Python Ninja

Book Image

Secret Recipes of the Python Ninja

Overview of this book

This book covers the unexplored secrets of Python, delve into its depths, and uncover its mysteries. You’ll unearth secrets related to the implementation of the standard library, by looking at how modules actually work. You’ll understand the implementation of collections, decimals, and fraction modules. If you haven’t used decorators, coroutines, and generator functions much before, as you make your way through the recipes, you’ll learn what you’ve been missing out on. We’ll cover internal special methods in detail, so you understand what they are and how they can be used to improve the engineering decisions you make. Next, you’ll explore the CPython interpreter, which is a treasure trove of secret hacks that not many programmers are aware of. We’ll take you through the depths of the PyPy project, where you’ll come across several exciting ways that you can improve speed and concurrency. Finally, we’ll take time to explore the PEPs of the latest versions to discover some interesting hacks.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Foreword
Contributors
Preface
Index

Embedding Python with other applications


The embedded distribution of Python is a zipfile that holds a minimal Python interpreter. Its purpose is to provide a Python environment for other programs, rather than being used directly by end users.

When extracted from the zipfile, the environment is essentially isolated from the underlying OS, that is, the Python environment is self-contained. The standard library is pre-compiled into bytecode and all Python-related .exe and .dll files are included. However, pip, documentation files and the Tcl/tk environment are not included. Because Tcl/tk is not available, the IDLE development environment and associated Tkinter files are not available for use.

In addition, the Microsoft C runtime is not included with the embedded distribution. While it is frequently installed on the user's system from other software or via Windows Update, it is ultimately up to the program installer to ensure that it is available for Python's use.

Necessary third-party Python...