Is Python a

Part I, Getting StartedWe begin with a general overview of Python that answers commonly asked initialquestions—why people use the language, what it’s useful for, and so on. Thefirst chapter introduces the major ideas underlying the technology to give yousome background context. Then the technical material of the book begins, as weexplore the ways that both we and Python run programs. The goal of this part ofthe book is to give you just enough information to be able to follow along withlater examples and exercises.Part II, Types and OperationsNext, we begin our tour of the Python language, studying Python’s major builtinobject types in depth: numbers, lists, dictionaries, and so on. You can get a lotdone in Python with these tools alone. This is the most substantial part of thebook because we lay groundwork here for later chapters. We’ll also look atdynamic typing and its references—keys to using Python well—in this part.Part III, Statements and SyntaxThe next part moves on to introduce Python’s statements—the code you type tocreate and process objects in Python. It also presents Python’s general syntaxmodel. Although this part focuses on syntax, it also introduces some relatedtools, such as the PyDoc system, and explores coding alternatives.Part IV, FunctionsThis part begins our look at Python’s higher-level program structure tools. Functionsturn out to be a simple way to package code for reuse and avoid coderedundancy. In this part, we will explore Python’s scoping rules, argumentpassingtechniques, and more.Part V, ModulesPython modules let you organize statements and functions into larger components,and this part illustrates how to create, use, and reload modules. We’ll alsolook at some more advanced topics here, such as module packages, modulereloading, and the _ _name_ _ variable.Part VI, Classes and OOPHere, we explore Python’s object-oriented programming (OOP) tool, the class—an optional but powerful way to structure code for customization and reuse. Asyou’ll see, classes mostly reuse ideas we will have covered by this point in thebook, and OOP in Python is mostly about looking up names in linked objects.As you’ll also see, OOP is optional in Python, but can shave development timesubstantially, especially for long-term strategic project development.Part VII, Exceptions and ToolsWe wrap up the text with a look at Python’s exception handling model andstatements, plus a brief overview of development tools that will become moreuseful when you start writing larger programs (debugging and testing tools, forinstance). This part comes last, exceptions should now all be classes.Preface | xxxv