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)

Using List Comprehensions

List comprehensions are a flexible, expressive way of writing Python expressions to create sequences of values. They make iterating over the input and building the resulting list implicit so that program authors and readers can focus on the important features of what the list represents. It is this concision that makes list comprehensions a Pythonic way of working with lists or sequences.

List comprehensions are built out of bits of Python syntax we have already seen. They are surrounded by square brackets ([]), which signify Python symbols for a literal list. They contain for elements in a list, which is how Python iterates over members of a collection. Optionally, they can filter elements out of a list using the familiar syntax of the if expression.

Exercise 99: Introducing List Comprehensions

In this exercise, you will be writing a program that creates a list of the cubes of whole numbers from 1 to 5. This example is trivial because we're...