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

Lessons learned


While the Charter library is just an example of modular Python programming, and you don't really have a boss who insists you generate charts in PDF format, these examples were selected because the problem is anything but trivial, and the changes you needed to make were also very challenging. Looking back over what we have achieved, there are several things you may notice:

  • When faced with a major change in requirements, our first reaction is usually a negative one: "Oh no! How could I possibly do that?,"a "It'll never work," and so on.

  • Rather than jumping in and starting to tinker with the code, it is generally better to step back and think about the structure of the existing code base and what might need to be changed to meet the new requirements.

  • Where the new requirement involves a library or tool you haven't used before, it is worth spending some time researching the possible options, and possibly writing a simple example program to check that the library will do what you...