Programming Python, 3rd Edition

Part I. The Beginning

This part of the book gets things started by introducing the Python language and taking us on a quick tour of some of the most common ways it is applied.

Chapter 1

Here, we’ll take a “behind the scenes” look at Python and its world by presenting some of its history, its major uses, and the common reasons people choose it for their projects. This is essentially a management-level, nontechnical introduction to Python.

Chapter 2

This chapter uses a simple example—recording information about people—to briefly introduce some of the major Python application domains we’ll be studying in this book. We’ll migrate the same example through multiple steps. Along the way, we’ll meet databases, GUIs, web sites, and more. This is something of a demo chapter, designed to pique your interest. We won’t learn much here, but we’ll have a chance to see Python in action before digging into the details. This chapter also serves as a review of some core language ideas you should be familiar with before starting this book, such as data representation and object-oriented programming (OOP).

The point of this part of the book is not to give you an in-depth look at Python, but just to let you sample its application. It will also provide you with a grounding in Python’s broader goals and purpose.