Book Image

The Python Workshop - Second Edition

By : Corey Wade, Mario Corchero Jiménez, Andrew Bird, Dr. Lau Cher Han, Graham Lee
4.7 (3)
Book Image

The Python Workshop - Second Edition

4.7 (3)
By: Corey Wade, Mario Corchero Jiménez, Andrew Bird, Dr. Lau Cher Han, Graham Lee

Overview of this book

Python is among the most popular programming languages in the world. It’s ideal for beginners because it’s easy to read and write, and for developers, because it’s widely available with a strong support community, extensive documentation, and phenomenal libraries – both built-in and user-contributed. This project-based course has been designed by a team of expert authors to get you up and running with Python. You’ll work though engaging projects that’ll enable you to leverage your newfound Python skills efficiently in technical jobs, personal projects, and job interviews. The book will help you gain an edge in data science, web development, and software development, preparing you to tackle real-world challenges in Python and pursue advanced topics on your own. Throughout the chapters, each component has been explicitly designed to engage and stimulate different parts of the brain so that you can retain and apply what you learn in the practical context with maximum impact. By completing the course from start to finish, you’ll walk away feeling capable of tackling any real-world Python development problem.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
13
Chapter 13: The Evolution of Python – Discovering New Python Features

Dynamic programming

Our recursive algorithm for computing Fibonacci numbers may look elegant, but that doesn’t mean it’s efficient. For example, when computing the fourth term in the sequence, it calculates the value for both the second and third terms. Likewise, when calculating the value of the third term in the sequence, it calculates the value for the first and second terms. This isn’t ideal, as the second term in the sequence was already being calculated in order to get the fourth term. Dynamic programming will help us to address this problem by ensuring you break down the problem into the appropriate subproblems, and never solve the same subproblem twice.

Exercise 53 – summing integers

In this exercise, you write a sum_to_n function to sum integers up to n. You store the results in a dictionary, and the function will use the stored results to return the answer in fewer iterations. For example, if you already know the sum of integers up to 5 is...