Book Image

Expert Python Programming - Second Edition

By : Michał Jaworski
Book Image

Expert Python Programming - Second Edition

By: Michał Jaworski

Overview of this book

Python is a dynamic programming language, used in a wide range of domains by programmers who find it simple, yet powerful. Even if you find writing Python code easy, writing code that is efficient and easy to maintain and reuse is a challenge. The focus of the book is to familiarize you with common conventions, best practices, useful tools and standards used by python professionals on a daily basis when working with code. You will begin with knowing new features in Python 3.5 and quick tricks for improving productivity. Next, you will learn advanced and useful python syntax elements brought to this new version. Using advanced object-oriented concepts and mechanisms available in python, you will learn different approaches to implement metaprogramming. You will learn to choose good names, write packages, and create standalone executables easily. You will also be using some powerful tools such as buildout and vitualenv to release and deploy the code on remote servers for production use. Moving on, you will learn to effectively create Python extensions with C, C++, cython, and pyrex. The important factors while writing code such as code management tools, writing clear documentation, and test-driven development are also covered. You will now dive deeper to make your code efficient with general rules of optimization, strategies for finding bottlenecks, and selected tools for application optimization. By the end of the book, you will be an expert in writing efficient and maintainable code.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Expert Python Programming Second Edition
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Naming styles


The different naming styles used in Python are:

  • CamelCase

  • mixedCase

  • UPPERCASE, and UPPER_CASE_WITH_UNDERSCORES

  • lowercase and lower_case_with_underscores

  • _leading and trailing_ underscores, and sometimes __doubled__ underscores

Lowercase and uppercase elements are often a single word, and sometimes a few words concatenated. With underscores, they are usually abbreviated phrases. Using a single word is better. The leading and trailing underscores are used to mark the privacy and special elements.

These styles are applied to:

  • Variables

  • Functions and methods

  • Properties

  • Classes

  • Modules

  • Packages

Variables

There are two kinds of variables in Python:

  • Constants

  • Public and private variables

Constants

For constant global variables, an uppercase with an underscore is used. It informs the developer that the given variable represents a constant value.

Note

There are no real constants in Python like those in C++, where const can be used. You can change the value of any variable. That's why Python uses a naming...