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TK Follow
Sep 30, 2017 · 11 min read

First of all, what is Python? According to its creator, Guido van Rossum,
Python is a:

“high-level programming language, and its core

design philosophy is all about code readability and a
syntax which allows programmers to express
concepts in a few lines of code.”

For me, the rst reason to learn Python was that it is, in fact, a beautiful
programming language. It was really natural to code in it and express
my thoughts.

Another reason was that we can use coding in Python in multiple ways:
data science, web development, and machine learning all shine here.

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Quora, Pinterest and Spotify all use Python for their backend web
development. So let’s learn a bit about it.

The Basics
1. Variables
You can think about variables as words that store a value. Simple as
that.

In Python, it is really easy to de ne a variable and set a value to it.

Imagine you want to store number 1 in a variable called “one.” Let’s do
it:

1 one = 1

How simple was that? You just assigned the value 1 to the variable
“one.”

1 two = 2
2 some_number = 10000

And you can assign any other value to whatever other variables you
want. As you see in the table above, the variable “two” stores the
integer 2, and “some_number” stores 10,000.

Besides integers, we can also use booleans (True / False), strings, oat,
and so many other data types.

1 # booleans
2 true_boolean = True
3 false_boolean = False
4
5 # string
6 my_name = "Leandro Tk"
7

2. Control Flow: conditional statements

“If” uses an expression to evaluate whether a statement is True or False.
If it is True, it executes what is inside the “if” statement. For example:

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1 if True:
2 print("Hello Python If")
3
4 if 2 > 1:

2 is greater than 1, so the “print” code is executed.

The “else” statement will be executed if the “if” expression is false.

1 if 1 > 2:
2 print("1 is greater than 2")
3 else:
4 print("1 is not greater than 2")

1 is not greater than 2, so the code inside the “else” statement will be
executed.

You can also use an “elif” statement:

1 if 1 > 2:
2 print("1 is greater than 2")
3 elif 2 > 1:
4 print("1 is not greater than 2")
5 else:

3. Looping / Iterator
In Python, we can iterate in di erent forms. I’ll talk about two: while
and for.

While Looping: while the statement is True, the code inside the block
will be executed. So, this code will print the number from 1 to 10.

1 num = 1
2
3 while num <= 10:
4 print(num)

The while loop needs a “loop condition.” If it stays True, it continues

iterating. In this example, when num is 11 the loop condition equals
False .

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Another basic bit of code to better understand it:

1 loop_condition = True
2
3 while loop_condition:
4 print("Loop Condition keeps: %s" %(loop_condition))

The loop condition is True so it keeps iterating — until we set it to

False .

For Looping: you apply the variable “num” to the block, and the “for”
statement will iterate it for you. This code will print the same as while
code: from 1 to 10.

1 for i in range(1, 11):

2 print(i)

See? It is so simple. The range starts with 1 and goes until the 11 th
element ( 10 is the 10 th element).

List: Collection | Array | Data Structure

Imagine you want to store the integer 1 in a variable. But maybe now
you want to store 2. And 3, 4, 5 …

Do I have another way to store all the integers that I want, but not in
millions of variables? You guessed it — there is indeed another way to
store them.

List is a collection that can be used to store a list of values (like these
integers that you want). So let’s use it:

1 my_integers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

It is really simple. We created an array and stored it on my_integer.

But maybe you are asking: “How can I get a value from this array?”

Great question. List has a concept called index. The rst element
gets the index 0 (zero). The second gets 1, and so on. You get the idea.

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To make it clearer, we can represent the array and each element with its
index. I can draw it:

Using the Python syntax, it’s also simple to understand:

1 my_integers = [5, 7, 1, 3, 4]
2 print(my_integers[0]) # 5
3 print(my_integers[1]) # 7
4 print(my integers[4]) # 4

Imagine that you don’t want to store integers. You just want to store
strings, like a list of your relatives’ names. Mine would look something
like this:

1 relatives_names = [
2 "Toshiaki",
3 "Juliana",
4 "Yuji",
5 "Bruno",
6 "Kaio"
7 ]

It works the same way as integers. Nice.

We just learned how Lists indices work. But I still need to show you
how we can add an element to the List data structure (an item to a
list).

The most common method to add a new value to a List is append .

Let’s see how it works:

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1 bookshelf = []
2 bookshelf.append("The Effective Engineer")
3 bookshelf.append("The 4 Hour Work Week")
4 print(bookshelf[0]) # The Effective Engineer

append is super simple. You just need to apply the element (eg. “The
E ective Engineer”) as the append parameter.

Well, enough about Lists . Let’s talk about another data structure.

Dictionary: Key-Value Data Structure

Now we know that Lists are indexed with integer numbers. But what
if we don’t want to use integer numbers as indices? Some data
structures that we can use are numeric, string, or other types of indices.

Let’s learn about the Dictionary data structure. Dictionary is a

collection of key-value pairs. Here’s what it looks like:

1 dictionary_example = {
2 "key1": "value1",
3 "key2": "value2",
4 "key3": "value3"

The key is the index pointing to the value. How do we access the
Dictionary value? You guessed it — using the key. Let’s try it:

1 dictionary_tk = {
2 "name": "Leandro",
3 "nickname": "Tk",
4 "nationality": "Brazilian"
5 }
6
7 print("My name is %s" %(dictionary tk["name"])) # My name is

I created a Dictionary about me. My name, nickname, and

nationality. Those attributes are the Dictionary keys.

As we learned how to access the List using index, we also use indices
(keys in the Dictionary context) to access the value stored in the
Dictionary .

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In the example, I printed a phrase about me using all the values stored
in the Dictionary . Pretty simple, right?

Another cool thing about Dictionary is that we can use anything as

the value. In the Dictionary I created, I want to add the key “age” and
my real integer age in it:

1 dictionary_tk = {
2 "name": "Leandro",
3 "nickname": "Tk",
4 "nationality": "Brazilian",
5 "age": 24
6 }
7
8 print("My name is %s" %(dictionary tk["name"])) # My name i

Here we have a key (age) value (24) pair using string as the key and
integer as the value.

As we did with Lists , let’s learn how to add elements to a

Dictionary . The key pointing to a value is a big part of what
Dictionary is. This is also true when we are talking about adding
elements to it:

1 dictionary_tk = {
2 "name": "Leandro",
3 "nickname": "Tk",
4 "nationality": "Brazilian"
5 }
6
7 dictionary_tk['age'] = 24

We just need to assign a value to a Dictionary key. Nothing

complicated here, right?

Iteration: Looping Through Data

Structures
As we learned in the Python Basics, the List iteration is very simple.
We Python developers commonly use For looping. Let’s do it:

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1 bookshelf = [
2 "The Effective Engineer",
3 "The 4 hours work week",
4 "Zero to One",
5 "Lean Startup",
6 "Hooked"
7 ]

So for each book in the bookshelf, we (can do everything with it)

print it. Pretty simple and intuitive. That’s Python.

For a hash data structure, we can also use the for loop, but we apply
the key  :

1 dictionary = { "some_key": "some_value" }

2
3 for key in dictionary:
4 print("%s --> %s" %(key, dictionary[key]))
5

This is an example how to use it. For each key in the dictionary  , we
print the key and its corresponding value .

Another way to do it is to use the iteritems method.

1 dictionary = { "some_key": "some_value" }

2
3 for key, value in dictionary.items():
4 print("%s --> %s" %(key, value))
5

We did name the two parameters as key and value , but it is not
necessary. We can name them anything. Let’s see it:

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1 dictionary_tk = {
2 "name": "Leandro",
3 "nickname": "Tk",
4 "nationality": "Brazilian",
5 "age": 24
6 }
7
8 for attribute, value in dictionary_tk.items():
9 print("My %s is %s" %(attribute, value))
10

We can see we used attribute as a parameter for the Dictionary key ,

and it works properly. Great!

Classes & Objects

A little bit of theory:
Objects are a representation of real world objects like cars, dogs, or
bikes. The objects share two main characteristics: data and behavior.

Cars have data, like number of wheels, number of doors, and seating
capacity They also exhibit behavior: they can accelerate, stop, show
how much fuel is left, and so many other things.

We identify data as attributes and behavior as methods in object-

oriented programming. Again:

Data → Attributes and Behavior → Methods

And a Class is the blueprint from which individual objects are created.
In the real world, we often nd many objects with the same type. Like
cars. All the same make and model (and all have an engine, wheels,
doors, and so on). Each car was built from the same set of blueprints
and has the same components.

Python Object-Oriented Programming mode: ON

Python, as an Object-Oriented programming language, has these
concepts: class and object.

A class is a blueprint, a model for its objects.

So again, a class it is just a model, or a way to de ne attributes and

behavior (as we talked about in the theory section). As an example, a

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vehicle class has its own attributes that de ne what objects are
vehicles. The number of wheels, type of tank, seating capacity, and
maximum velocity are all attributes of a vehicle.

With this in mind, let’s look at Python syntax for classes:

1 class Vehicle:
2 pass

We de ne classes with a class statement — and that’s it. Easy, isn’t it?

Objects are instances of a class. We create an instance by naming the

class.

1 car = Vehicle()
2 print(car) # <__main__.Vehicle instance at 0x7fb1de6c2638>

Here car is an object (or instance) of the class Vehicle .

Remember that our vehicle class has four attributes: number of

wheels, type of tank, seating capacity, and maximum velocity. We set
all these attributes when creating a vehicle object. So here, we de ne
our class to receive data when it initiates it:

1 class Vehicle:
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, type_of_tank, seati
3 self.number_of_wheels = number_of_wheels
4 self.type_of_tank = type_of_tank
5 self.seating capacity = seating capacity

We use the init method. We call it a constructor method. So when

we create the vehicle object, we can de ne these attributes. Imagine
that we love the Tesla Model S, and we want to create this kind of
object. It has four wheels, runs on electric energy, has space for ve
seats, and the maximum velocity is 250km/hour (155 mph). Let’s
create this object:

1 tesla_model_s = Vehicle(4, 'electric', 5, 250)

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Four wheels + electric “tank type” + ve seats + 250km/hour

maximum speed.

All attributes are set. But how can we access these attributes’ values?
We send a message to the object asking about them. We call it a
method. It’s the object’s behavior. Let’s implement it:

1 class Vehicle:
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, type_of_tank, seat
3 self.number_of_wheels = number_of_wheels
4 self.type_of_tank = type_of_tank
5 self.seating_capacity = seating_capacity
6 self.maximum_velocity = maximum_velocity
7
8 def number_of_wheels(self):

This is an implementation of two methods: number_of_wheels and

set_number_of_wheels. We call it getter & setter . Because the
rst gets the attribute value, and the second sets a new value for the
attribute.

In Python, we can do that using @property ( decorators ) to de ne

getters and setters . Let’s see it with code:

1 class Vehicle:
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, type_of_tank, seat
3 self.number_of_wheels = number_of_wheels
4 self.type_of_tank = type_of_tank
5 self.seating_capacity = seating_capacity
6 self.maximum_velocity = maximum_velocity
7
8 @property
9 def number_of_wheels(self):
10 return self number of wheels

And we can use these methods as attributes:

1 tesla_model_s = Vehicle(4, 'electric', 5, 250)

2 print(tesla_model_s.number_of_wheels) # 4
3 tesla_model_s.number_of_wheels = 2 # setting number of wheel
4 print(tesla model s number of wheels) # 2

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This is slightly di erent than de ning methods. The methods work as

attributes. For example, when we set the new number of wheels, we
don’t apply two as a parameter, but set the value 2 to
number_of_wheels . This is one way to write pythonic getter and
setter code.

But we can also use methods for other things, like the “make_noise”
method. Let’s see it:

1 class Vehicle:
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, type_of_tank, seati
3 self.number_of_wheels = number_of_wheels
4 self.type_of_tank = type_of_tank
5 self.seating_capacity = seating_capacity
6 self.maximum_velocity = maximum_velocity
7

When we call this method, it just returns a string “VRRRRUUUUM.”

1 tesla_model_s = Vehicle(4, 'electric', 5, 250)

2 tesla_model_s.make_noise() # VRUUUUUUUM

. . .

Encapsulation: Hiding Information

Encapsulation is a mechanism that restricts direct access to objects’
data and methods. But at the same time, it facilitates operation on that
data (objects’ methods).

“Encapsulation can be used to hide data members

and members function. Under this de nition,
encapsulation means that the internal
representation of an object is generally hidden from
view outside of the object’s de nition.” — Wikipedia

All internal representation of an object is hidden from the outside. Only

the object can interact with its internal data.

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First, we need to understand how public and non-public instance

variables and methods work.

Public Instance Variables

For a Python class, we can initialize a public instance variable

within our constructor method. Let’s see this:

Within the constructor method:

1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name):
3 self.first_name = first_name

Here we apply the first_name value as an argument to the public

instance variable .

1 tk = Person('TK')
2 print(tk.first_name) # => TK

Within the class:

1 class Person:
2 first_name = 'TK'

Here, we do not need to apply the first_name as an argument, and all

instance objects will have a class attribute initialized with TK .

1 tk = Person()
2 print(tk.first_name) # => TK

Cool. We have now learned that we can use public instance

variables and class attributes . Another interesting thing about the

public part is that we can manage the variable value. What do I mean
by that? Our object can manage its variable value: Get and Set

variable values.

Keeping the Person class in mind, we want to set another value to its
first_name variable:

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1 tk = Person('TK')
2 tk.first_name = 'Kaio'
3 print(tk.first_name) # => Kaio

There we go. We just set another value ( kaio ) to the first_name

instance variable and it updated the value. Simple as that. Since it’s a
public variable, we can do that.

Non-public Instance Variable

We don’t use the term “private” here, since no

attribute is really private in Python (without a
generally unnecessary amount of work).— PEP 8

As the public instance variable  , we can de ne the non-public

instance variable both within the constructor method or within the

class. The syntax di erence is: for non-public instance variables  ,
use an underscore ( _ ) before the variable name.

“‘Private’ instance variables that cannot be accessed

except from inside an object don’t exist in Python.
However, there is a convention that is followed by
most Python code: a name pre xed with an
underscore (e.g. _spam) should be treated as a non-
public part of the API (whether it is a function, a
method or a data member)” — Python Software
Foundation

Here’s an example:

1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name, email):
3 self.first_name = first_name
4 self email email

Did you see the email variable? This is how we de ne a non-public

variable  :

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1 tk = Person('TK', '[email protected]')
2 print(tk._email) # [email protected]

We can access and update it. Non-public variables are just a convention
and should be treated as a non-public part of the API.

So we use a method that allows us to do it inside our class de nition.

Let’s implement two methods ( email and update_email ) to
understand it:

1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name, email):
3 self.first_name = first_name
4 self._email = email
5
6 def update_email(self, new_email):
7 self._email = new_email

Now we can update and access non-public variables using those

methods. Let’s see:

1 tk = Person('TK', '[email protected]')
2 print(tk.email()) # => [email protected]
3 tk._email = '[email protected]'
4 print(tk.email()) # => [email protected]
5 tk.update email('new [email protected]')

1. We initiated a new object with first_name TK and email

[email protected]

2. Printed the email by accessing the non-public variable with a

method

3. Tried to set a new email out of our class

4. We need to treat non-public variable as non-public part of the

API

5. Updated the non-public variable with our instance method

6. Success! We can update it inside our class with the helper method

Public Method

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With public methods , we can also use them out of our class:

1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name, age):
3 self.first_name = first_name
4 self._age = age
5

Let’s test it:

1 tk = Person('TK', 25)
2 print(tk.show_age()) # => 25

Great — we can use it without any problem.

Non-public Method
But with non-public methods we aren’t able to do it. Let’s implement
the same Person class, but now with a show_age non-public method

using an underscore ( _ ).

1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name, age):
3 self.first_name = first_name
4 self._age = age
5

And now, we’ll try to call this non-public method with our object:

1 tk = Person('TK', 25)
2 print(tk._show_age()) # => 25

We can access and update it. Non-public methods are just a convention
and should be treated as a non-public part of the API.

Here’s an example for how we can use it:

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1 class Person:
2 def __init__(self, first_name, age):
3 self.first_name = first_name
4 self._age = age
5
6 def show_age(self):
7 return self._get_age()
8
9 def _get_age(self):

Here we have a _get_age non-public method and a show_age

public method . The show_age can be used by our object (out of our
class) and the _get_age only used inside our class de nition (inside
show_age method). But again: as a matter of convention.

Encapsulation Summary
With encapsulation we can ensure that the internal representation of
the object is hidden from the outside.

Inheritance: behaviors and characteristics

Certain objects have some things in common: their behavior and
characteristics.

For example, I inherited some characteristics and behaviors from my

father. I inherited his eyes and hair as characteristics, and his
impatience and introversion as behaviors.

In object-oriented programming, classes can inherit common

characteristics (data) and behavior (methods) from another class.

Let’s see another example and implement it in Python.

Imagine a car. Number of wheels, seating capacity and maximum

velocity are all attributes of a car. We can say that an ElectricCar class
inherits these same attributes from the regular Car class.

1 class Car:
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, seating_capacity, m
3 self.number_of_wheels = number_of_wheels
4 self.seating_capacity = seating_capacity

Our Car class implemented:

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1 my_car = Car(4, 5, 250)

2 print(my_car.number_of_wheels)
3 print(my_car.seating_capacity)
4 print(my car maximum velocity)

Once initiated, we can use all instance variables created. Nice.

In Python, we apply a parent class to the child class as a

parameter. An ElectricCar class can inherit from our Car class.

1 class ElectricCar(Car):
2 def __init__(self, number_of_wheels, seating_capacity, m
3 Car.__init__(self, number_of_wheels, seating_capacit

Simple as that. We don’t need to implement any other method, because

this class already has it (inherited from Car class). Let’s prove it:

1 my_electric_car = ElectricCar(4, 5, 250)

2 print(my_electric_car.number_of_wheels) # => 4
3 print(my_electric_car.seating_capacity) # => 5
4 print(my electric car maximum velocity) # > 250

Beautiful.

That’s it!
We learned a lot of things about Python basics:

• How Python variables work

• How Python conditional statements work

• How Python looping (while & for) works

• How to use Lists: Collection | Array

• Dictionary Key-Value Collection

• How we can iterate through these data structures

• Objects and Classes

• Attributes as objects’ data

• Methods as objects’ behavior

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• Using Python getters and setters & property decorator

• Encapsulation: hiding information

• Inheritance: behaviors and characteristics

Congrats! You completed this dense piece of content about Python.

If you want a complete Python course, learn more real-world coding

skills and build projects, try One Month Python Bootcamp. See you
there ☺

. . .

For more stories and posts about my journey learning & mastering
programming, follow my publication The Renaissance Developer.

Have fun, keep learning, and always keep coding.

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