Book Image

Python Object-Oriented Programming - Fourth Edition

By : Steven F. Lott, Dusty Phillips
2 (1)
Book Image

Python Object-Oriented Programming - Fourth Edition

2 (1)
By: Steven F. Lott, Dusty Phillips

Overview of this book

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a popular design paradigm in which data and behaviors are encapsulated in such a way that they can be manipulated together. Python Object-Oriented Programming, Fourth Edition dives deep into the various aspects of OOP, Python as an OOP language, common and advanced design patterns, and hands-on data manipulation and testing of more complex OOP systems. These concepts are consolidated by open-ended exercises, as well as a real-world case study at the end of every chapter, newly written for this edition. All example code is now compatible with Python 3.9+ syntax and has been updated with type hints for ease of learning. Steven and Dusty provide a comprehensive, illustrative tour of important OOP concepts, such as inheritance, composition, and polymorphism, and explain how they work together with Python’s classes and data structures to facilitate good design. In addition, the book also features an in-depth look at Python’s exception handling and how functional programming intersects with OOP. Two very powerful automated testing systems, unittest and pytest, are introduced. The final chapter provides a detailed discussion of Python's concurrent programming ecosystem. By the end of the book, you will have a thorough understanding of how to think about and apply object-oriented principles using Python syntax and be able to confidently create robust and reliable programs.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
15
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16
Index

Exercises

Practice test-driven development. That is your first exercise. It's easier to do this if you're starting a new project, but if you have existing code you need to work on, you can start by writing tests for each new feature you implement. This can become frustrating as you become more enamored with automated tests. The old, untested code will start to feel rigid and tightly coupled, and will become uncomfortable to maintain; you'll start feeling like changes you make are breaking the code and you have no way of knowing, for lack of tests. But if you start small, adding tests to the code base improves it over time. It's not unusual for there to be more test code than application code!

So, to get your feet wet with test-driven development, start a fresh project. Once you've started to appreciate the benefits (you will) and realize that the time spent writing tests is quickly regained in terms of more maintainable code, you'll want to start...