Get a comprehensive, in-depth introduction to the core Python language with this hands-on book. Based on author Mark Lutz&;s popular training course, this updated fifth edition will help you quickly write efficient, high-quality code with Python. It&;s an ideal way to begin, whether you&;re new to programming or a professional developer versed in other languages.
Complete with quizzes, exercises, and helpful illustrations, this easy-to-follow, self-paced tutorial gets you started with both Python 2.7 and 3.3&; the latest releases in the 3.X and 2.X lines&;plus all other releases in common use today. You&;ll also learn some advanced language features that recently have become more common in Python code.
- Explore Python&;s major built-in object types such as numbers, lists, and dictionaries
- Create and process objects with Python statements, and learn Python&;s general syntax model
- Use functions to avoid code redundancy and package code for reuse
- Organize statements, functions, and other tools into larger components with modules
- Dive into classes: Python&;s object-oriented programming tool for structuring code
- Write large programs with Python&;s exception-handling model and development tools
- Learn advanced Python tools, including decorators, descriptors, metaclasses, and Unicode processing
Mark Lutz is the world leader in Python training, the author of Python's earliest and best-selling texts, and a pioneering figure in the Python community since 1992. He has been a software developer for 25 years, and is the author of O'Reilly's Programming Python, 3rd Edition and Python Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition.