|
|
|
Python @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
|
|
|
|
|
Python Index - Python Book :
Core Python Programming (Prentice Hall Ptr Core Series)
by Wesley J. Chun Paperback: 810 pages Dimensions (in inches): 2.10 x 9.34 x 7.04 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR ISBN: 0130260363; 1st edition (December 15, 2000) A quick guide to everything anyone would want to know about the soaringly popular Internet programming language, Python. Provides an introduction to new features introduced in Python 1.6, and topics covered include regular expressions, extending Python, and OOP. The CD-ROM includes the source code for all of the examples in the text. From the Inside Flap: Preface Welcome to Python! Welcome to the wonderful world of Python! As a professional or student with working knowledge of another high-level programming language, this text was made for you in your efforts to jump straight into Python with as little overhead as possible. The goal of this book is to provide text that flows in a conversational style littered with examples to highlight your path towards Python programming. At the time of publication, Python 2.0 was just released, so you will definitely have the latest and greatest. The supplementary CD-ROM has the three most recent versions of Python: 1.5.2, 1.6, and 2.0, not to mention the most recent release of the Java version of the Python interpreter, JPython (a.k.a. Jython).Style: Technical, Yet Easy Reading. Rather than strictly a "beginners'" book or a pure, hard-core computer science reference book, my instructional experience indicates that an easy-to-read, yet technically-oriented book serves our purpose the best, and that is to get you up-to-speed on Python as quickly as possible, so that you can apply it to your tasks post haste. We will introduce concepts coupled with appropriate examples to expedite the learning process. At the end of each chapter you will find numerous exercises to reinforce some of the concepts and ideas acquired in your reading. After the obligatory introduction to Python, but before heading to the core of the language, we take a "quick plunge" into Python with the "Getting Started" chapter. The intention of this chapter is for those who wish to temporarily dispense of formal reading and get their hands dirty with Python immediately. If you do not wish to travel this path, you may proceed as normal to the next set of chapters, an introduction to Python objects. Python's primitive data types, numbers, strings, lists, tuples, and dictionaries make up the next three chapters. Python's error-handling capability is extremely useful to both the programmer and the user, and we address that topic in a separate chapter. Finally, the largest parts of the Python "core" we cover will be functions, modules, and classes... each in its own chapter. The final chapter of the text provides insight on how Python may be extended. The last section of the book is a mini-reference guide in the appendix. There we spill the beans on the core modules of the standard library, highlight the operators and built-in operators and functions for the Python types, provide solutions to selected exercises, and conclude with a small glossary of terms.Author's Experience with Python I discovered Python several years ago at a company called Four11. At the time, the company had one major product, the Four11 White Page directory service. Python was being used to design the Rocketmail web-based email service that would eventually one day evolve into what is Yahoo!Mail today. In addition to the use of C++, much of the controlling software and web front-end were done completely in Python. I participated in work done on the Yahoo!Mail address book and spellchecker. Since then, Python's appearance has spread to other Yahoo! sites, including People Search, Yellow Pages, and Maps and Driving Directions, just to name a few. Although Python was new to me at the time, it was fairly easy to pick up; much simpler than other languages that I have learned in the past. The scarcity of the number of textbooks at the time led me to primarily use the Library Reference and Quick Reference Guide as my tools in learning, and also led to the motivation of the book you are reading right now.Book Contents. This book is divided into two main sections. The first part, taking up about two-thirds of the text, gives you treatment of the "core" part of the language, and the second part provides a set of various advanced topics to show what you can build using Python. Python is everywhere-sometimes it is amazing to discover who is using Python and what they are doing with it-and although we would have loved to produce additional chapters on such topics as Databases (RDBMSs, SQL, etc.), CGI Processing with HTMLgen, XML, Numerical/Scientific Processing, Visual and Graphics Image Manipulation, and Zope, there simply wasn't enough time to develop these topics into their own chapters. However, we are certainly glad that we were at least able to provide you with a good introduction to many of the key areas of Python development. Here is a chapter-by-chapter guide: Part I: Core Python Chapter 1-Welcome to Python! We begin by introducing Python to you, its history, features, benefits, etc., as well as how to obtain and install Python on your system. Chapter 2-Getting Started If you are an experienced programmer and just want to see "how it's done" in Python, this is the right place to go. We introduce the basic Python concepts and statements, and because many of these would be familiar to you, you would simply learn the proper syntax in Python and can get started right away on your projects without sacrificing too much reading time. Chapter 3-Syntax and Style This section gives you a good overview of Python's syntax as well as style hints. You will also be exposed to Python's keywords and its memory management ability. Your first Python application will be presented at the end of the chapter to give you an idea of what real Python code looks like. Chapter 4-Python Objects This chapter introduces Python objects. In addition to generic object attributes, we will show you all of Python's data types and operators, as well as show you different ways to categorize the standard types. Built-in functions that apply to most Python objects will also be covered. Chapter 5-Numbers Python has four numeric types: regular or "plain" integers, long integers, floating point real numbers, and complex numbers. You will learn about all four here, as well as the operators and built-in functions that apply to numbers. Chapter 6-Sequences: Strings, Lists, and Tuples Your first meaty chapter will expose you to all of Python's powerful sequence types: strings, lists, and tuples. We will show you all the built-in functions, methods, and special features, which apply to each type as well as all their operators. Chapter 7-Dictionaries Dictionaries are Python's mapping or hashing type. Like other data types, dictionaries also have operators and applicable built-in functions and methods. Chapter 8-Conditionals and Loops Like many other high-level languages, Python supports loops such as for and while, as well as if statements (and related). Python also has a built-in function called range() which enables Python's for loop to behave more like a traditional counting loop rather than the foreach iterative type loop that it is. Chapter 9-Files and Input/Output In addition to standard file objects and input/output, this chapter introduces you to file system access, file execution, and persistent storage. Chapter 10-Errors and Exceptions One of Python's most powerful constructs is its exception handling ability. You can see a full treatment of it here, instruction on how to raise or throw exceptions, and more importantly, how to create your own exception classes. Chapter 11-Functions Creating and calling functions are relatively straightforward, but Python has many other features that you will find useful, such as default arguments, named or keyword arguments, variable-length arguments, and some functional programming constructs. We also dip into variable scope and recursion briefly. Chapter 12-Modules One of Python's key strengths is in its ability to be extended. This feature allows for "plug-n-play" access as well as promotes code reuse. Applications written as modules can be imported for use by other Python modules with a single line of code. Furthermore, multiple module software distribution can be simplified by using packages. Chapter 13-Classes and OOP Python is a fully object-oriented programming language and was designed that way from the beginning. However, Python does not require you to program in such a manner-you may continue to develop structural/procedural code as you like, and can transition to "OO" programming anytime you are ready to take advantage of its benefits. Likewise, this chapter is here to guide you through the concepts as well as advanced topics, such as operator overloading, customization, and delegation. Chapter 14-Execution Environment The term "execution" can mean many different things, from callable and executable objects to running other programs (Python or otherwise). We discuss these topics in this chapter, as well as limited restricted execution and different ways of terminating execution. Part II: Advanced Topics Chapter 15-Regular Expressions Regular expressions are a powerful tool used for pattern matching, extracting, and search-and-replace functionality. Learn about them here. Chapter 16-Network Programming with Sockets So many applications today need to be network-oriented. You have to start somewhere. In this chapter, you will learn to create clients and servers, using TCP/IP and UDP/IP. Chapter 17-Multithreaded Programming Multithreaded programming is a powerful way to improve the executi... From the Back Cover: • New to Python? This is the developer's guide to Python development! • Learn the core features of Python as well as advanced topics such as regular expressions, multithreaded programming, Web/Internet and network development, GUI development with Tk(inter) and more • Also includes features found in the new Python 1.6 and 2.0 releases • CD-ROM: Complete Python distributions (source code, documentation, and various binaries) plus all example scripts in the book Python is an Internet and systems programming language that is soaring in popularity in today's fast-paced software development environment, and no wonder: it's simple (yet robust), object-oriented (yet can be used as a procedural language), extensible, scalable and features an easy to learn syntax that is clear and concise. Python combines the power of a compiled object language like Java and C++ with the ease of use and rapid development time of a scripting language. In fact, it's syntax is so easy to understand that you are more likely to pick it up faster than any of the other popular scripting languages in use today! In Core Python Programming, Internet software engineer and technical trainer Wesley Chun provides intermediate and experienced developers all they need to know to learn Python-fast. Like all Core Series books, Core Python Programming delivers hundreds of industrial-strength code snippets and examples, all targeted at professional developers who want to leverage their existing skills! In particular, Core Python Programming presents numerous interactive examples that can be entered into the Python interpreter right in front of you! Finally, we present a chapter that shows you step-by-step how to extend Python using C or C++. • Python syntax and style • Development and Run-time Environments • Objects and Python memory management • Standard data types, methods, and operators • Loops and conditionals • Files and Input/Output • Exceptions and error handling • Functions, scope, arguments, and functional programming • Importing modules and module attributes • Object-oriented Programming with classes, methods, and instances • Callable Objects • Extending Python Coverage of the Python standard module library and client-server application development includes comprehensive introductions to the following topics in Python programming: • Regular expressions • TCP/IP and UDP/IP Network programming using sockets • Operating system interface • GUI development with Tk using Tkinter • Multithreaded programming • Interactive Web/CGI/Internet applications • Executing code in a restricted environment • Inheritance, type emulation, operator overloading, and delegation in an OOP environment Finally, we provide an introduction to the new features introduced in Python 1.6. These include Unicode string support, the new function invocation syntax which lets the caller provide a tuple of positional arguments and/or a dictionary of keyword arguments, and the new string methods. We also provide a glimpse into features that will only be found in the newer 2.0 release. Every Core Series book: • DEMONSTRATES how to write commercial-quality code • FEATURES dozens of programs and examples! • FOCUSES on the features and functions most important to real developers • PROVIDES objective, unbiased coverage of cutting-edge technologies-no • hype! Core Python Programming delivers: • Coverage of the core parts of the Python language • Real-world insights for developing Web/Internet, network, multithreaded and GUI applications • Tables and charts detailing Python modules, built-in functions, operators, and attributes • Code snippets to try live with Python's interactive interpreter, hammering the concepts home • Extensive code examples-including several complete sample applications CD-ROM includes complete Python source code and documentation distributions for Unix/Linux along with binaries for Windows and Macintosh platforms plus source code for all examples in the book. About the Author: WESLEY J. CHUN holds computer science and mathematics degrees from the University of CA, MSCS from U.C. Santa Barbara, and an AB in Mathematics and Minor in Music. He is a principal consultant at Cyberweb Consulting. While at Yahoo!, Chun used Python to help create Yahoo!Mail and Yahoo! People Search. Chun has over 18 years of UNIX, computer programming, and instructional experience. In his spare time, Chun serves as a technical instructor with U.C. Santa Cruz where he teaches Python, C, and UNIX for the UCSC Extension system. Customer Reviews Reviewer: Nirmal from Bangalore,India I started book reading Acknowledgements,Where i found name of Guido Van Rossum,creator of Python in Technical Review Panel of this book.That itself establishes the credibility. I recommend Python as the first object oriented program to learn,for that this book is defintely worth.Author explains everything in a very simple manner,including how the language modules itself are constructed. Explaining data structured related to language is basic requirement for any programming book - This book does exceptionaly well in this. I personally liked the part - Extending Python.Also this book covers JPython - Java avatar of Python. Reviewer: Paul T. Ammann from New Fairfield, CT United States For the last few months I was developing in Perl. But I found myself very frustrated with the syntax, and the Perl books on the market did a so-so job on explaining how everything worked. And then I came across this book. I had read a review about in the Linux Journal. In 2 days I "inhaled" 200+ pages of this book, about 7 chapters. To begin with, this book is easy to understand, has numerous examples to go long with the text, and does an excellent job in progessing through Python. The first 400 pages cover syntax, style, functions, classes, modules, etc. If you've ever programmed in another language (C, C++, Java, Perl), Mr. Chun compares Python to each of them in simularities and differences. You should be pick up on these quite easily. The last part of the book in more advanced topics, which I found quite enjoyable. I don't program in Perl anymore. After reading this book, I wonder why I didn't look at Python first. Aside from a book on Tkinter, this is the only book that I keep on my desk. It's great for teaching and learning, but makes a great reference book also. |
|
|
|
© 2005-2006, Programming Shed
|
