Think Python

by Downey, Allen B.

• ISBN13: 9781449330729
• ISBN10: 144933072X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-20
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for students with no programming experience. It starts with the most basic concepts of programming, and is carefully designed to define all terms when they are first used and to develop each new concept in a logical progression. Larger pieces, like recursion and object-oriented programming are divided into a sequence of smaller steps and introduced over the course of several chapters.

Author Biography

Allen Downey is a Professor of Computer Science at Olin College of Engineering. He has taught computer science at Wellesley College, Colby College, and U.C. Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley and Master's and Bachelor's degrees from MIT.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
The Way of the Program	p. 1
The Python Programming Language	p. 1
What Is a Program?	p. 3
What Is Debugging?	p. 4
Syntax Errors	p. 4
Runtime Errors	p. 4
Semantic Errors	p. 5
Experimental Debugging	p. 5
Formal and Natural Languages	p. 6
The First Program	p. 7
Debugging	p. 8
Glossary	p. 9
Exercises	p. 11
Variables, Expressions, and Statements	p. 13
Values and Types	p. 13
Variables	p. 14
Variable Names and Keywords	p. 15
Operators and Operands	p. 16
Expressions and Statements	p. 16
Interactive Mode and Script Mode	p. 17
Order of Operations	p. 18
String Operations	p. 18
Comments	p. 19
Debugging	p. 19
Glossary	p. 20
Functions	p. 23
Function Calls	p. 23
Type Conversion Functions	p. 23
Math Functions	p. 24
Composition	p. 25
Adding New Functions	p. 25
Definitions and Uses	p. 27
Flow of Execution	p. 27
Parameters and Arguments	p. 28
Variables and Parameters Are Local	p. 29
Stack Diagrams	p. 30
Fruitful Functions and Void Functions	p. 31
Why Functions?	p. 32
Importing with from	p. 32
Debugging	p. 33
Glossary	p. 33
Exercises	p. 35
Case Study: Interface Design	p. 37
Turtle World	p. 37
Simple Repetition	p. 38
Exercises	p. 39
Encapsulation	p. 40
Generalization	p. 41
Interface Design	p. 42
Refactoring	p. 43
A Development Plan	p. 44
Docstring	p. 44
Debugging	p. 45
Glossary	p. 45
Exercises	p. 46
Conditionals and Recursion	p. 49
Modulus Operator	p. 49
Boolean Expressions	p. 49
Logical Operators	p. 50
Conditional Execution	p. 50
Alternative Execution	p. 51
Chained Conditionals	p. 51
Nested Conditionals	p. 52
Recursion	p. 53
Stack Diagrams for Recursive Functions	p. 54
Infinite Recursion	p. 55
Keyboard Input	p. 55
Debugging	p. 56
Glossary	p. 57
Exercises	p. 58
Fruitful Functions	p. 61
Return Values	p. 61
Incremental Development	p. 62
Composition	p. 64
Boolean Functions	p. 65
More Recursion	p. 66
Leap of Faith	p. 68
One More Example	p. 68
Checking Types	p. 69
Debugging	p. 70
Glossary	p. 71
Exercises	p. 72
Iteration	p. 75
Multiple Assignment	p. 75
Updating Variables	p. 76
The while Statement	p. 76
break	p. 78
Square Roots	p. 79
Algorithms	p. 80
Debugging	p. 81
Glossary	p. 81
Exercises	p. 82
Strings	p. 85
A String Is a Sequence	p. 85
len	p. 86
Traversal with a for Loop	p. 86
String Slices	p. 87
Strings Are Immutable	p. 88
Searching	p. 89
Looping and Counting	p. 89
String Methods	p. 90
The in Operator	p. 91
String Comparison	p. 92
Debugging	p. 92
Glossary	p. 94
exercises	p. 95
Case Study: Word Play	p. 97
Reading Word Lists	p. 97
Exercises	p. 98
Search	p. 99
Looping with Indices	p. 100
Debugging	p. 102
Glossary	p. 102
Exercises	p. 103
Lists	p. 105
A List Is a Sequence	p. 105
Lists Are Mutable	p. 106
Traversing a List	p. 107
List Operations	p. 107
List Slices	p. 108
List Methods	p. 108
Map, Filter, and Reduce	p. 109
Deleting Elements	p. 111
Lists and Strings	p. 112
Objects and Values	p. 112
Aliasing	p. 113
List Arguments	p. 114
Debugging	p. 116
Glossary	p. 117
Exercises	p. 118
Dictionaries	p. 121
Dictionary as a Set of Counters	p. 123
Looping and Dictionaries	p. 124
Reverse Lookup	p. 125
Dictionaries and Lists	p. 126
Memos	p. 128
Global Variables	p. 129
Long Integers	p. 130
Debugging	p. 131
Glossary	p. 132
Tuples	p. 135
Tuples Are Immutable	p. 135
Tuple Assignment	p. 136
Tuples as Return Values	p. 137
Variable-Length Argument Tuples	p. 137
Lists and Tuples	p. 138
Dictionaries and Tuples	p. 139
Comparing Tuples	p. 141
Sequences of Sequences	p. 142
Debugging	p. 143
Glossary	p. 144
Exercises	p. 144
Case Study: Data Structure Selection	p. 147
Word Frequency Analysis	p. 147
Random Numbers	p. 148
Word Histogram	p. 149
Most Common Words	p. 150
Optional Parameters	p. 151
Dictionary Subtraction	p. 151
Random Words	p. 152
Markov Analysis	p. 153
Data Structures	p. 154
Debugging	p. 156
Glossary	p. 157
Exercises	p. 158
Files	p. 159
Persistence	p. 159
Reading and Writing	p. 159
Format Operator	p. 160
Filenames and Paths	p. 161
Catching Exceptions	p. 162
Databases	p. 163
Pickling	p. 164
Pipes	p. 165
Writing Modules	p. 166
Debugging	p. 167
Glossary	p. 168
Classes and Objects	p. 171
User-Defined Types	p. 171
Attributes	p. 172
Rectangles	p. 173
Instances as Return Values	p. 174
Objects Are Mutable	p. 175
Copying	p. 176
Debugging	p. 177
Glossary	p. 178
Exercises	p. 178
Classes and Functions	p. 181
Time	p. 181
Pure Functions	p. 182
Modifiers	p. 183
Prototyping Versus Planning	p. 184
Debugging	p. 185
Glossary	p. 186
Exercises	p. 187
Classes and Methods	p. 189
Object-Oriented Features	p. 189
Printing Objects	p. 190
Another Example	p. 191
A More Complicated Example	p. 192
The init Method	p. 192
The_str_Method	p. 193
Operator Overloading	p. 194
Type-Based Dispatch	p. 194
Polymorphism	p. 196
Debugging	p. 197
Interface and Implementation	p. 197
Glossary	p. 198
Exercises	p. 199
Inheritance	p. 201
Card Objects	p. 201
Class Attributes	p. 202
Comparing Cards	p. 204
Decks	p. 205
Printing the Deck	p. 205
Add, Remove, Shuffle, and Sort	p. 206
Inheritance	p. 207
Class Diagrams	p. 209
Debugging	p. 210
Data Encapsulation	p. 211
Glossary	p. 212
Exercises	p. 213
Case Study: Tkinter	p. 217
GUI	p. 217
Buttons and Callbacks	p. 218
Canvas Widgets	p. 219
Coordinate Sequences	p. 220
More Widgets	p. 221
Packing Widgets	p. 222
Menus and Callables	p. 224
Binding	p. 225
Debugging	p. 227
Glossary	p. 229
Exercises	p. 230
Debugging	p. 233
Analysis of Algorithms	p. 243
Lumpy	p. 255
Index	p. 265
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