#285 Python

Book notes - Think Python, 2nd edition, by Allen B. Downey, published by O’Reilly.

Notes

Table of Contents - Highlights

Preface

• The Strange History of This Book
• Conventions Used in This Book
• Using Code Examples
• O’Reilly Online Learning
• How to Contact Us
• Acknowledgments
• Contributor List

1. The Way of the Program

• What Is a Program?
• Running Python
• The First Program
• Arithmetic Operators
• Values and Types
• Formal and Natural Languages
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Variables, Expressions and Statements

• Assignment Statements
• Variable Names
• Expressions and Statements
• Script Mode
• Order of Operations
• String Operations
• Comments
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Functions

• Function Calls
• Math Functions
• Composition
• Adding New Functions
• Definitions and Uses
• Flow of Execution
• Parameters and Arguments
• Variables and Parameters Are Local
• Stack Diagrams
• Fruitful Functions and Void Functions
• Why Functions?
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Case Study: Interface Design

• The turtle Module
• Simple Repetition
• Exercises
• Encapsulation
• Generalization
• Interface Design
• Refactoring
• A Development Plan
• docstring
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Conditionals and Recursion

• Floor Division and Modulus
• Boolean Expressions
• Logical Operators
• Conditional Execution
• Alternative Execution
• Chained Conditionals
• Nested Conditionals
• Recursion
• Stack Diagrams for Recursive Functions
• Infinite Recursion
• Keyboard Input
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Fruitful Functions

• Return Values
• Incremental Development
• Composition
• Boolean Functions
• More Recursion
• Leap of Faith
• One More Example
• Checking Types
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Iteration

• Reassignment
• Updating Variables
• The while Statement
• break
• Square Roots
• Algorithms
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Strings

• A String Is a Sequence
• len
• Traversal with a for Loop
• String Slices
• Strings Are Immutable
• Searching
• Looping and Counting
• String Methods
• The in Operator
• String Comparison
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Case Study: Word Play

• Reading Word Lists
• Exercises
• Search
• Looping with Indices
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Lists

• A List Is a Sequence
• Lists Are Mutable
• Traversing a List
• List Operations
• List Slices
• List Methods
• Map, Filter and Reduce
• Deleting Elements
• Lists and Strings
• Objects and Values
• Aliasing
• List Arguments
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Dictionaries

• A Dictionary Is a Mapping
• Dictionary as a Collection of Counters
• Looping and Dictionaries
• Reverse Lookup
• Dictionaries and Lists
• Memos
• Global Variables
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Tuples

• Tuples Are Immutable
• Tuple Assignment
• Tuples as Return Values
• Variable-Length Argument Tuples
• Lists and Tuples
• Dictionaries and Tuples
• Sequences of Sequences
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Case Study: Data Structure Selection

• Word Frequency Analysis
• Random Numbers
• Word Histogram
• Most Common Words
• Optional Parameters
• Dictionary Subtraction
• Random Words
• Markov Analysis
• Data Structures
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Files

• Persistence
• Reading and Writing
• Format Operator
• Filenames and Paths
• Catching Exceptions
• Databases
• Pickling
• Pipes
• Writing Modules
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Classes and Objects

• Programmer-Defined Types
• Attributes
• Rectangles
• Instances as Return Values
• Objects Are Mutable
• Copying
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Classes and Functions

• Time
• Pure Functions
• Modifiers
• Prototyping versus Planning
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Classes and Methods

• Object-Oriented Features
• Printing Objects
• Another Example
• A More Complicated Example
• The init Method
• The str Method
• Operator Overloading
• Type-Based Dispatch
• Polymorphism
• Interface and Implementation
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Inheritance

• Card Objects
• Class Attributes
• Comparing Cards
• Decks
• Printing the Deck
• Add, Remove, Shuffle and Sort
• Inheritance
• Class Diagrams
• Data Encapsulation
• Debugging
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. The Goodies

• Conditional Expressions
• List Comprehensions
• Generator Expressions
• any and all
• Sets
• Counters
• defaultdict
• Named Tuples
• Gathering Keyword Args
• Glossary
• Exercises

1. Debugging

• Syntax Errors
• I keep making changes and it makes no difference.
• Runtime Errors
• My program does absolutely nothing.
• My program hangs.
• When I run the program I get an exception.
• I added so many print statements I get inundated with output.
• Semantic Errors
• My program doesn’t work.
• I’ve got a big hairy expression and it doesn’t do what I expect.
• I’ve got a function that doesn’t return what I expect.
• I’m really, really stuck and I need help.
• No, I really need help.

1. Analysis of Algorithms

• Order of Growth
• Analysis of Basic Python Operations
• Analysis of Search Algorithms
• Hashtables

Getting the Example Source

git clone https://github.com/AllenDowney/ThinkPython2.git example_source

Credits and References

• Think Python, 2nd Edition
• Errata
• Think Python, 2nd edition - greenteapress
• example code
• Think Python - GoodReads