Python Quick Start ebook

By Martin McBride, 2021-02-04

Tags: python beginner
Categories: book python

Python is an extremely popular language, and is an excellent choice for first time programmers, because it is simple to get started with, but extremely powerful once you get to know it. Python in the language of choice for machine learning and web development, but is can also be used for anything from system scripts to games to desktop applications. It is also embedded in many existing applications to provide a scripting mechanism, which can be used to automate many applications such as Paintshop or Blender.

This book will help you learn Python whether you are a complete beginner or you already have experience programming in other languages. It teaches all the core features of the language, step by step, with example code.

Contents:

1 Getting started with Python
1.1 Installing Python
1.2 Running IDLE
1.3 Simple maths in Python
1.4 Variables
1.5 Strings
1.6 Console shortcuts
2 Hello world
2.1 Writing a program
2.2 In case of errors
2.3 Print statements - outputting text
2.4 Sequencing
2.5 Input statements - getting user input
2.6 Selection
2.7 Iteration
2.8 Comments
3 Variables and values
3.1 Creating and using variables
3.2 Variables can store any type of data
3.3 Naming variables
3.4 Variables point to values
3.5 None
3.6 Multiple assignments
4 Numbers and maths
4.1 Types of number
4.2 Basic maths operations
4.3 Precedence and brackets
4.4 Built-in maths functions
4.5 math module
4.6 Limitations of floats
4.7 More advanced topics
5 Strings
5.1 Creating strings
5.2 String type
5.3 Operations on strings
5.4 Converting between strings and other data types
5.5 How to use special characters in a string
6 Loops
6.1 For loops
6.2 The range function
6.3 For loop example - printing a times table
6.4 While loops
6.5 While loop example - getting user input
6.6 Nested loops
7 Input and output
7.1 Input prompts
7.2 Inputting numbers
7.3 Print
7.4 Print separators
8 If statements
8.1 if statements
8.2 Comparison operators
8.3 Else statement
8.4 Elif statement
8.5 Compound conditions
8.6 Comparison operator chaining
8.7 Precedence
9 Lists
9.1 What is a list?
9.2 Creating lists
9.3 The list type
9.4 Accessing list elements
9.5 Operations on lists
9.6 Looping over a list
9.7 List functions
9.8 List methods
9.9 Two-dimensional lists
9.10 Aliasing
9.11 Examples
10 Using functions
10.1 Why use functions?
10.2 Built-in functions
10.3 Importing modules
10.4 How to call functions
10.5 Defining your own functions
11 More loops
11.1 The break operator
11.2 The continue operator
11.3 Using else with a loop
11.4 Nested loop statements
11.5 Modifying a for loop
11.6 Looping in reverse order
11.7 sorted()
11.8 Looping over multiple items
11.9 More about zip()
11.10 Accessing the loop count using enumerate
11.11 Looping over selected items
12 Programming logic
12.1 Boolean types
12.2 Comparison operators and their opposites
12.3 Boolean operations and De Morgan’s Laws
12.4 Ternary operators
12.5 Comparing containers
12.6 Membership testing
12.7 Identity testing
12.8 Truthy values
12.9 Short circuit evaluation
13 Slices
13.1 Slicing a list
13.2 Using negative indices
13.3 Delete or replace a slice of a list
13.4 Slicing tuples and strings
13.5 Loop over a slice
13.6 Using steps
14 More strings
14.1 Raw strings
14.2 Multi-line strings
14.3 Looping over a string
14.4 Joining strings
14.5 Splitting a string
14.6 Formatting strings
14.7 The in operator
14.8 Other string methods
15 Tuples
15.1 What is a tuple?
15.2 Creating a tuple
15.3 Accessing elements
15.4 Packing and unpacking tuples
15.5 Tuple vs list operations
15.6 Pros and cons of immutability
16 Exceptions
16.1 Program errors
16.2 What are exceptions
16.3 Exception types
16.4 Catching exceptions
16.5 Using else with exceptions
16.6 Using finally with exceptions
16.7 Throwing exceptions
17 Working with files
17.1 Using files
17.2 Reading data
17.3 Writing data
17.4 Using with statements
17.5 CSV data

More information:

If you have any comments or questions you can get in touch by any of the following methods:

The book page on the Leanpub website.
Signing up for the Python Informer newsletter at pythoninformer.com
Following @pythoninformer on twitter.
Contacting me directly by email (info@axlesoft.com).

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If you found this article useful, you might be interested in the book NumPy Recipes or other books by the same author.

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