Introduction to Python, New Zealand

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This course provides a complete introduction to the Python scripting language. Delegates will learn to program using all the features of Python 3, with an emphasis on writing maintainable and testable scripts. Both the functional and object-oriented aspects of Python are covered in depth, including best practices for using them in combination.

The course is normally taught over 3 days, but this can be reduced if delegates are fluent in another scripting language, such as Perl or Ruby. The delivery can be on either Linux or Windows as required. By default the ‘PyCharm’ IDE is used for examples and exercises, but other editors can be substituted on request.

Delegates should ideally have several years programming experience, gained either from strongly typed languages like C, C++, C#, and Java or other scripting languages like Perl, Ruby and JavaScript.

Introduction to Python

The evolution of Python from Shell Scripting and Perl
Installing Python and running / debugging simple scripts
Differences between Python 3 and earlier versions
Using the JVM and CLR based Python interpreters
Comparing Python to Ruby, JavaScript and PowerShell

The Basics of Python Scripting

Declaring and modifying variables
Reading and writing from the console
Working with the built in data types
Making choices and performing iteration
Declaring functions and passing parameters
Identity, equality and references

Working With Structured Data

Storing individual items in sets, lists and tuples
Storing pairs of items in dictionaries (aka hashes)
Understanding how class declarations work in Python
Creating classes and adding attributes and operations
Using your own types with the built-in collections

Regular Expressions in Python

What is a regular expression?
How the Regular Expression Engine operates
Functions in Python that accept regular expressions
Creating character classes and specifying multiplicities
Meta-characters for specifying positions in the input
Understanding greedy vs. non-greedy matching
Using parenthesis for grouping and submatches
Making use of look-behind and look-ahead
Adding comments to your regular expressions

Object Orientation in Depth

Creating class hierarchies in Python
Overriding methods from base classes
Adding properties to your classes
The intrinsic class and object attributes
Creating your own iterator objects and generators
Using decorators to address Aspects in your design
Guidelines for overloading operators sensibly
Support for meta-programming in Python

Functional Programming in Python

Using functions as inputs to other functions
Building and returning functions from functions
Creating and working with lambda functions
Using lamdbas with filter, map and reduce
Simplifying your code using list comprehensions

Writing Maintainable Scripts

Raising and catching exceptions correctly
Organizing your code into modules and packages
Understanding symbol tables and accessing them in code
Picking a testing framework and applying TDD in Python

Performing Common Tasks

Reading and writing text, data and objects from files
Basic network programming in Python using sockets
Dynamically running code with exec and eval
Working with SOAPy and RESTful web services
Options for accessing relational databases
Writing multi-threaded Python scripts

Upcoming Trainings

Join our public courses in our New Zealand facilities. Private class trainings will be organized at the location of your preference, according to your schedule.

Classroom / Virtual Classroom

09 June 2024