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

Using alternative Python shells – DreamPie


Continuing in the vein of improving upon the vanilla Python experience, DreamPie provides some new ideas on alternative shells. The functionality provided by DreamPie includes:

  • Splitting the interactive shell into a history box and a code box. Like IPython, the history box is a list of previous commands and results, while the code box is the current code being edited. The difference with the code box is that it functions more like a text editor, allowing you to write as much code as desired before executing it.
  • A copy code only command that copies only the code desired, allowing it to be pasted into a file while retaining indentation.
  • Automatic attribute and filename completion.
  • Code introspection, displaying function arguments and documentation.
  • The session history can be saved to an HTML file for future reference; the HTML file can be loaded back into DreamPie for quick reuse.
  • Automatic addition of parentheses and quotes after functions and methods...