Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language

Python 3 is the best version of the language yet: It is more powerful, convenient, consistent, and expressive than ever before. Now, leading Python programmer Mark Summerfield demonstrates how to write code that takes full advantage of Python 3’s features and idioms. The first book written from a completely “Python 3” viewpoint, Programming in Python 3 brings together all the knowledge you need to write any program, use any standard or third-party Python 3 library, and create new library modules of your own.

Summerfield draws on his many years of Python experience to share deep insights into Python 3 development you won’t find anywhere else. He begins by illuminating Python’s “beautiful heart”: the eight key elements of Python you need to write robust, high-performance programs. Building on these core elements, he introduces new topics designed to strengthen your practical expertise–one concept and hands-on example at a time. This book’s coverage includes

Developing in Python using procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming paradigms

Creating custom packages and modules

Writing and reading binary, text, and XML files, including optional compression, random access, and text and XML parsing

Leveraging advanced data types, collections, control structures, and functions

Spreading program workloads across multiple processes and threads

Programming SQL databases and key-value DBM files

Utilizing Python’s regular expression mini-language and module

Building usable, efficient, GUI-based applications

Advanced programming techniques, including generators, function and class decorators, context managers, descriptors, abstract base classes, metaclasses, and more

Programming in Python 3serves as both tutorial and language reference, and it is accompanied by extensive downloadable example code–all of it tested with the final version of Python 3 on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.