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)

Generators

A function that returns a value does all of its computation and gives up control to its caller, which supplies that value. This is not the only possible behavior for a function. It can instead yield a value, which passes control (and the value) back to the caller but leaves the function's state intact. Later, it can yield another value, or finally return to indicate that it is done. A function that yields is called a generator.

Generators are useful because they allow a program to defer or postpone calculating a result until it's required. Finding the successive digits of π, for example, is hard work, and it gets harder as the number of digits increases. If you wrote a program to display the digits of π, you might calculate the first 1,000 digits. Much of that effort will be wasted if the user only asks to see the first 10 digits. Using a generator, you can put off the expensive work until your program actually requires the results.

A real-world...