Book Image

The Python Workshop

By : Olivier Pons, Andrew Bird, Dr. Lau Cher Han, Mario Corchero Jiménez, Graham Lee, Corey Wade
Book Image

The Python Workshop

By: Olivier Pons, Andrew Bird, Dr. Lau Cher Han, Mario Corchero Jiménez, Graham Lee, Corey Wade

Overview of this book

Have you always wanted to learn Python, but never quite known how to start? More applications than we realize are being developed using Python because it is easy to learn, read, and write. You can now start learning the language quickly and effectively with the help of this interactive tutorial. The Python Workshop starts by showing you how to correctly apply Python syntax to write simple programs, and how to use appropriate Python structures to store and retrieve data. You'll see how to handle files, deal with errors, and use classes and methods to write concise, reusable, and efficient code. As you advance, you'll understand how to use the standard library, debug code to troubleshoot problems, and write unit tests to validate application behavior. You'll gain insights into using the pandas and NumPy libraries for analyzing data, and the graphical libraries of Matplotlib and Seaborn to create impactful data visualizations. By focusing on entry-level data science, you'll build your practical Python skills in a way that mirrors real-world development. Finally, you'll discover the key steps in building and using simple machine learning algorithms. By the end of this Python book, you'll have the knowledge, skills and confidence to creatively tackle your own ambitious projects with Python.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

The Importance of the Standard Library

Python is often described as coming with "batteries included," which is usually a reference to its standard library. The Python standard library is vast, unlike any other language in the tech world. The Python standard library includes modules to connect to a socket; that is, one to send emails, one to connect to SQLite, one to work with the locale module, or one to encode and decode JSON and XML.

It is also renowned for including such modules as turtle and tkinter, graphical interfaces that most users probably don't use anymore, but they have proven useful when Python is taught at schools and universities.

It even includes IDLE, a Python-integrated development environment, it is not widely used as there are either other packages within the standard library that are used more often or external tools to substitute them. These libraries are divided into high-level modules and lower-level modules:

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