Python Fundamentals
Python Fundamentals gets you started with Python, a dynamic language popular for web development, big data, science, and scripting.
What you'll learn
Python Fundamentals gets you started with Python, a dynamic language popular for web development, big data, science, and scripting.
What’s so great about Python? Python is powerful.
The Python language is expressive and productive, it comes with a great standard library, and it’s the center of a huge universe of wonderful third-party libraries. With Python you can build everything from simple scripts to complex applications, you can do it quickly, and you can do it with fewer lines of code than you might think possible.
But for many people those reasons take back-seat to something more important: Python is fun!
Python’s readable style, quick edit-and-run development cycle, and “batteries included” philosophy mean that you can sit down and enjoy writing code rather than fighting compilers and thorny syntax. As your experiments become prototypes and your prototypes become products, Python makes the experience of writing software not just easier but truly enjoyable. In the words of Randall Munroe, "Come join us! Programming is fun again!"
Table of contents
- Introduction 2m
- Installing Python 3 on Windows 1m
- Installing Python 3 on macOS X 2m
- Installing Python 3 on Linux 1m
- The Read-Eval-Print-Loop or REPL 4m
- Significant Whitespace in Python 5m
- Python Culture and the Zen of Python 2m
- Importing From the Python Standard Library 7m
- Scalar Types: int, float, None and bool 6m
- Relational Operators 2m
- Conditional Statements 3m
- While Loops 5m
- Summary 3m
- Introduction 1m
- Creating, Running, and Importing a Module 2m
- Defining Functions and Returning Values 1m
- Distinguishing Between Module Import and Module Execution 3m
- The Python Execution Model 2m
- Main Functions and Command Line Arguments 4m
- Sparse Is Better Than Dense 1m
- Documenting Your Code Using Docstrings 2m
- Documenting Your Code With Comments 1m
- The Whole Shebang 2m
- Summary 3m
- Introduction 1m
- Exceptions and Control Flow 1m
- Handling Exceptions 2m
- Programmer Errors 2m
- Imprudent Error Codes 1m
- Re-Raising Exceptions 1m
- Exceptions as APIs 3m
- Exceptions, APIs, and Protocols 1m
- Do Not Guard Against Type Errors 1m
- EAFP vs. LBYL 3m
- Clean-Up Actions 1m
- Moment of Zen 0m
- Platform-Specific Code 2m
- Summary 2m
- Introduction 1m
- Defining Classes 2m
- Instance Methods 1m
- Initializers 4m
- A Second Class 2m
- Collaborating Classes 1m
- Moment of Zen 1m
- Example: Booking Seats 5m
- Defining Implementation Details 2m
- OO With Function Objects 2m
- Polymorphism and Duck Typing 2m
- Inheritance and Implementation Sharing 3m
- Summary 3m
- Introduction 3m
- Writing Text Files 3m
- Reading Text Files 2m
- Appending to Text Files 1m
- Files as Iterators 2m
- Managing Files With Try..Finally 2m
- Context Managers and with-blocks 2m
- Simple Is Better Than Complex 1m
- Writing Binary Files 6m
- Bitwise Operators 1m
- Fractal Images 2m
- Reading Binary Files 2m
- File Like Objects 2m
- Closing With Context Managers 2m
- Summary 2m
Course FAQ
Python is an interpreted, high-level and general-purpose programming language. Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace.
Python is most commonly used to create or edit web applications. Python is not limited to web applictions though, Python can also be used for back end development, software development, data science, and writing systems scripts. Python can also automate a specific series of tasks, making them more efficient.
This course is for anyone that wants to learn Python or refresh their Python skills.This course is perfect for Python beginners.
For this course, you will need an active Python download. Python is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.
In this course, you will learn the core fundamentals of Python. You will also learn how to use Python for web development, big data, science, and scripting.
About the authors
Robert Smallshire is a founder of Sixty North, a software product and consulting business in Norway. Robert has worked in senior architecture and technical management roles for software companies in the energy sector processing the masses of information flowing from today's digital oil fields. He has designed, and implemented effective architectures for sophisticated scientific and enterprise software in Python, C++, and C#. Robert is a regular speaker at conferences, meetups and corporate softw... more
Austin is a founding director of Sixty North, a software consulting, training, and application development company. A native of Texas, in 2008 Austin moved to Stavanger, Norway where he helped develop industry-leading oil reservoir modeling software in C++ and Python. Prior to that he worked at National Instruments developing LabVIEW, at Applied Research Labs (Univ. of Texas at Austin) developing sonar systems for the U.S. Navy, and at a number of telecommunications companies. He is an ex... more