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)

Multiprocessing

It's common to need to execute more than one thing in parallel in a modern software system. Machine learning programs and scientific simulations benefit from using the multiple cores available in a modern processor, dividing their work up between concurrent threads operating on the parallel hardware. Graphical user interfaces and network servers do their work "in the background," leaving a thread available to respond to user events or new requests.

As a simple example, suppose your program had to execute three steps: A, B, and C. These steps are not dependent on each other, meaning they can be completed in any order. Usually, you would simply execute them in order, as follows:

Figure 9.14: Processing with a single thread

However, what if you could do all of these steps at the same time, rather than waiting for one to complete before moving onto the next? Our workflow would look like this:

Figure 9.15:...