Book Image

Modular Programming with Python

By : Erik Westra
Book Image

Modular Programming with Python

By: Erik Westra

Overview of this book

Python has evolved over the years and has become the primary choice of developers in various fields. The purpose of this book is to help readers develop readable, reliable, and maintainable programs in Python. Starting with an introduction to the concept of modules and packages, this book shows how you can use these building blocks to organize a complex program into logical parts and make sure those parts are working correctly together. Using clearly written, real-world examples, this book demonstrates how you can use modular techniques to build better programs. A number of common modular programming patterns are covered, including divide-and-conquer, abstraction, encapsulation, wrappers and extensibility. You will also learn how to test your modules and packages, how to prepare your code for sharing with other people, and how to publish your modules and packages on GitHub and the Python Package Index so that other people can use them. Finally, you will learn how to use modular design techniques to be a more effective programmer.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Modular Programming with Python
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The fly in the ointment – changing requirements


Of course, nothing is ever really finished. Let's pretend that you wrote the Charter library and have been busily extending it for several months, adding more data series types and lots of options. The library is being used in several big projects for your company, the output looks fantastic, and everyone seems to be very happy with it—until the day that your boss comes in and says, "It's too fuzzy. Can you take the fuzziness away?"

You ask what he means, and he says that he's been printing the charts out on a high-resolution laser printer. The results aren't good enough for him to use in his company reports. He takes a printout and points to the heading. Looking closely, you can see what he means:

Sure enough, the text is pixelated, and even the lines look a bit jagged when printed at high resolution. You try increasing the size of the generated chart, but it still doesn't look good enough—and when you try increasing the size to match the 1...