Book Image

Mastering Python 2E - Second Edition

By : Rick van Hattem
5 (1)
Book Image

Mastering Python 2E - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Rick van Hattem

Overview of this book

Even if you find writing Python code easy, writing code that is efficient, maintainable, and reusable is not so straightforward. Many of Python’s capabilities are underutilized even by more experienced programmers. Mastering Python, Second Edition, is an authoritative guide to understanding advanced Python programming so you can write the highest quality code. This new edition has been extensively revised and updated with exercises, four new chapters and updates up to Python 3.10. Revisit important basics, including Pythonic style and syntax and functional programming. Avoid common mistakes made by programmers of all experience levels. Make smart decisions about the best testing and debugging tools to use, optimize your code’s performance across multiple machines and Python versions, and deploy often-forgotten Python features to your advantage. Get fully up to speed with asyncio and stretch the language even further by accessing C functions with simple Python calls. Finally, turn your new-and-improved code into packages and share them with the wider Python community. If you are a Python programmer wanting to improve your code quality and readability, this Python book will make you confident in writing high-quality scripts and taking on bigger challenges
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
19
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20
Index

asyncio – Multithreading without Threads

The previous chapter showed us how to track our application performance. In this chapter, we will use asynchronous programming to switch between functions whenever we have to wait for input/output (I/O) operations. This effectively fakes the effects of multiple threads or processes without introducing the overhead that comes with those solutions. In the next chapter, we will also cover multiple threads and processes for the cases where I/O is not your bottleneck or where asyncio is not an option.

Whenever you are dealing with external resources such as reading/writing files, interacting with APIs or databases, and other I/O operations, you can achieve great benefits from using asyncio. Where normally a single stalling remote connection can make your entire process hang, with asyncio, it will simply switch to a different part of your code.

This chapter will explain how asynchronous functions can be used in Python and how...