Book Image

Python: Journey from Novice to Expert

By : Fabrizio Romano, Dusty Phillips, Rick van Hattem
Book Image

Python: Journey from Novice to Expert

By: Fabrizio Romano, Dusty Phillips, Rick van Hattem

Overview of this book

Python is a dynamic and powerful programming language, having its application in a wide range of domains. It has an easy-to-use, simple syntax, and a powerful library, which includes hundreds of modules to provide routines for a wide range of applications, thus making it a popular language among programing enthusiasts.This course will take you on a journey from basic programming practices to high-end tools and techniques giving you an edge over your peers. It follows an interesting learning path, divided into three modules. As you complete each one, you’ll have gained key skills and get ready for the material in the next module.The first module will begin with exploring all the essentials of Python programming in an easy-to-understand way. This will lay a good foundation for those who are interested in digging deeper. It has a practical and example-oriented approach through which both the introductory and the advanced topics are explained. Starting with the fundamentals of programming and Python, it ends by exploring topics, like GUIs, web apps, and data science.In the second module you will learn about object oriented programming techniques in Python. Starting with a detailed analysis of object-oriented technique and design, you will use the Python programming language to clearly grasp key concepts from the object-oriented paradigm. This module fully explains classes, data encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, and exceptions with an emphasis on when you can use each principle to develop well-designed software.With a good foundation of Python you will move onto the third module which is a comprehensive tutorial covering advanced features of the Python language. Start by creating a project-specific environment using venv. This will introduce you to various Pythonic syntax and common pitfalls before moving onto functional features and advanced concepts, thereby gaining an expert level knowledge in programming and teaching how to script highest quality Python programs.
Table of Contents (6 chapters)
4
A. Bibliography
5
Index

Chapter 6. Generators and Coroutines – Infinity, One Step at a Time

A generator is a specific type of iterator that generates values through a function. While traditional methods build and return a list of items, a generator will simply yield every value separately at the moment when they are requested by the caller. This method has several benefits:

  • Generators pause execution completely until the next value is yielded, which makes them completely lazy. If you fetch five items from a generator, only five items will be generated, so no other computation is needed.
  • Generators have no need to save values. Whereas a traditional function would require creating a list and storing all results until they are returned, a generator only needs to store a single value.
  • Generators can have infinite size. There is no requirement to stop at a certain point.

These benefits come at a price, however. The immediate results of these benefits are a few disadvantages:

  • Until you are done processing...