Book Image

Mastering Object-Oriented Python - Second Edition

By : Steven F. Lott
Book Image

Mastering Object-Oriented Python - Second Edition

By: Steven F. Lott

Overview of this book

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a relatively complex discipline to master, and it can be difficult to see how general principles apply to each language's unique features. With the help of the latest edition of Mastering Objected-Oriented Python, you'll be shown how to effectively implement OOP in Python, and even explore Python 3.x. Complete with practical examples, the book guides you through the advanced concepts of OOP in Python, and demonstrates how you can apply them to solve complex problems in OOP. You will learn how to create high-quality Python programs by exploring design alternatives and determining which design offers the best performance. Next, you'll work through special methods for handling simple object conversions and also learn about hashing and comparison of objects. As you cover later chapters, you'll discover how essential it is to locate the best algorithms and optimal data structures for developing robust solutions to programming problems with minimal computer processing. Finally, the book will assist you in leveraging various Python features by implementing object-oriented designs in your programs. By the end of this book, you will have learned a number of alternate approaches with different attributes to confidently solve programming problems in Python.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Tighter Integration Via Special Methods
11
Section 2: Object Serialization and Persistence
17
Section 3: Object-Oriented Testing and Debugging

Installing Python modules

We have several techniques to install a Python module or package:

  • We can write setup.py and use the distribution utilities module, distutils, to install the package into Python's lib/site-packages directory. This is described in detail in the Python Packaging Authority documentation. See https://www.pypa.io/en/latest/ for information. Building software for other people to install can be complex, and will often require sophisticated test cases using the tox tool to build environments, run tests, and create distribution kits. See https://tox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ for more information.
  • We can set the PYTHONPATH environment variable to include our packages and modules. We can set this temporarily in a shell, or we can set it more permanently by editing our ~/.bash_profile or the system's /etc/profile. We'll take a look at this later in...