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Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science
John Hunt
A Beginners
Guide to Python 3
Programming
Second Edition
Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science
Series Editor
Ian Mackie, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Advisory Editors
Samson Abramsky , Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford,
Oxford, UK
Chris Hankin , Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London,
UK
Mike Hinchey , Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre, University of
Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Dexter C. Kozen, Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY, USA
Andrew Pitts , Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of
Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Hanne Riis Nielson , Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer
Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Steven S. Skiena, Department of Computer Science, Stony Brook University, Stony
Brook, NY, USA
Iain Stewart , Department of Computer Science, Durham University, Durham,
UK
Joseph Migga Kizza, College of Engineering and Computer Science, The
University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN, USA
‘Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science’ (UTiCS) delivers high-quality instruc-
tional content for undergraduates studying in all areas of computing and information
science. From core foundational and theoretical material to final-year topics and
applications, UTiCS books take a fresh, concise, and modern approach and are ideal
for self-study or for a one- or two-semester course. The texts are all authored by
established experts in their fields, reviewed by an international advisory board, and
contain numerous examples and problems, many of which include fully worked
solutions.
The UTiCS concept relies on high-quality, concise books in softback format, and
generally a maximum of 275–300 pages. For undergraduate textbooks that are likely
to be longer, more expository, Springer continues to offer the highly regarded Texts
in Computer Science series, to which we refer potential authors.
John Hunt
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is simply for Denise, the love of my
life.
Preface the Second Edition
I am writing this preface to the second edition of this book in the middle of 2023,
and I am reflecting on what has happened to Python over the last 4 to 5 years.
Python itself has gone from strength to strength, its popularity has not diminished
and if anything has increased. I increasingly come across organizations in all walks
of life that are actively using the language. This is true whether they are schools,
colleges or universities, charities, governmental organization, research institutions
or commercial enterprises. The uses being made of Python keeps on growing and
the ecosystem of supporting libraries available keeps on growing.
This edition represents a significant update from Python 3.7 (which was the current
version when the first edition of the book was written) to Python 3.11 (and a look
ahead to Python 3.12). It also represents a significant extension to the original book
with an additional eight chapters. These chapters represent topics and questions that
those learning Python have expressed an interest in such as frozensets, enumer-
ated types and sorting functions to Python virtual environments. It also reflects new
features in the language such as pattern matching introduced in Python 3.10 and
Exception Groups handling and Exception Notes introduced in Python 3.11.
The book also now includes a chapter entitled ‘Python Bites Back’ which high-
lights for someone learning Python, 14 of the most common mistakes made by a
Python beginner. This chapter can be dropped into at any time but covers the whole
of the language discussed in this book so some sections may be more relevant once
the whole book has been read.
vii
Preface to the First Edition
There is currently huge interest in the Python programming language. This is driven
by several factors; its use in schools with the Raspberry Pi platform, its ability to be
used for DevOps scripts, its use in Data Science and Machine Learning and of course
the language itself. Plus of course it is free! So anyone anywhere can download and
install Python and get started.
There are many books on Python; however, most assume previous programming
experience or are focused on particular aspects of Python use such as Data Science
or Machine Learning or have a scientific flavor.
The aim of this book is to introduce Python to those with little or very little
programming knowledge, but to take them through to become an experienced Python
developer.
As such the earlier parts of the book introduce fundamental concepts such as
what a variable is and how a for loop works. In contrast the later chapters intro-
duce advanced concepts such as Functional Programming, object orientation and
exception handling.
In between a wide range of topics are introduced and discussed from a Python
point of view including functions, recursion, operators, Python properties, modules
and packages, protocols and monkey patching, etc.
After the core elements of Python are established each new subject area is intro-
duced by way of an introductory chapter presenting the topic in general, providing
background on that subject, why it is of importance, etc. These introductions cover
structure analysis, functional programming and object orientation.
Some of the key aspects of this book are:
1. It assumes very little knowledge or experience of Python or programming.
2. It provides a basic introduction to Python as well as advanced topics such as
generators and coroutines.
3. This book provides extensive coverage of object orientation and the features in
Python 3 supporting classes, inheritance and protocols.
4. Pythons’ support for functional programming is also presented.
ix
x Preface to the First Edition
Chapter Organization
Each chapter has a brief introduction, the main body of the chapter, followed by a
list of (typically) online references that can be used for further reading.
Following this there is typically an Exercises section that lists one or more
exercises that build on the skills you will have learnt in that chapter.
Sample solutions to the exercises are available in a GitHub online repository that
supports this book.
You can of course just read this book; however following the examples in this book
will ensure that you get as much as possible out of the content.
For this you will need a computer.
Python is a cross platform programming language and as such you can use Python
on a Windows PC, a Linux box or a Apple Mac, etc. So you are not tied to a particular
type of operating system; you can use whatever you have available.
However you will need to install some software on that computer. At a minimum
you will need Python.
This book focuses on Python 3 so you will need that. Some guidance on this is
provided in Chap. 2 on setting up your environment.
You will also need some form of editor in which to write your programs. There
are numerous generic programming editors available for different operating systems
with VIM on Linux, Notepad++ on Windows and Sublime Text on Windows and
Macs being popular choices.
However, using a Integrated Development Environment (IDE) editor such as
PyCharm or potential Visual Studio Code will make writing and running your
programs much easier.
Preface to the First Edition xi
Using an IDE
The IDE I prefer for Python is PyCharm, it is not the only IDE for Python by any
means, but it is a very widely used one.
Other IDEs available for Python include:
● Spyder which is an IDE often used by scientists and engineers see https://www.
spyder-ide.org/.
● Jupiter Notebook which is a web-based IDE and is particularly good for data
scientists https://jupyter.org/.
● Visual Studio Code. This is a very good free editor from Microsoft that has really
useful features https://code.visualstudio.com.
● Sublime Text is more of a text editor that color codes Python; however for a simple
project it may be all you need https://www.sublimetext.com.
Mostly this book is editor or IDE agnostic only Chap. 3 ‘Setting up the Python
Environment’ and Chap. 42 ‘Python Virtual Environments’ really focus on PyCharm.
You can therefore use whatever editor you wish to use.
Conventions
Throughout this book you will find a number of conventions used for text styles.
These text styles distinguish different kinds of information.
Code words, variables and Python values, used within the main body of the text,
are shown using a Courier font. For example:
This program creates a top level window (the wx.Frame) and gives it a title. It also creates
a label (a wx.StaticText object) to be displayed within the frame.
The examples used in this book (along with sample solutions for the exercises at the
end of most chapters) are available in a GitHub repository. GitHub provides a web
interface and a server environment hosting Git.
Git is a version control system typically used to manage source code files (such
as those used to create systems in programming languages such as Python but also
Java, C#, C++, Scala, etc.). Systems such as Git are very useful for collaborative
development as they allow multiple people to work on an implementation and to
merge their work together. They also provide a useful historical view of the code
(which also allows developers to roll back changes if modifications prove to be
unsuitable).
If you already have Git installed on your computer then you can clone (obtain a
copy of) the repository locally using:
git clone https://github.com/johnehunt/beginnerspython
3_2nd
If you do not have git then you can obtain a zip file of the examples using
https://github.com/johnehunt/beginnerspython3_2nd/arc
hive/master.zip
You can of course install Git yourself if you wish. To do this see https://git-scm.
com/downloads. Versions of the Git client for Mac OS, Windows and Linux/Unix
are available here.
However, many IDEs such as PyCharm come with Git support and so offer another
approach to obtaining a Git repository.
For more information on Git see http://git-scm.com/doc. This Git guide provides
a very good primer and is highly recommended.
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 What is Python? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Python Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Python History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Python Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Python Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Python Execution Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.7 Running Python Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.7.1 Interactively Using the Python Interpreter . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.7.2 Running a Python File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.7.3 Executing a Python Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.7.4 Using Python in an IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.8 Jupyter Notebooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.9 Useful Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Where is Python Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.1 Data Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.2 Machine Learning and AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.3 Database Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.4 Python for Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.5 Python for Film Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.6 Cross Platform UIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.7 Games Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.8 Integration Testing Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.9 Academic Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.10 Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Useful Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
xiii
xiv Contents
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