The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python

Preface

Python is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is.

This guide is not intended to teach you the Python language (we cite lots of great resources that do that) but is rather an (opinionated) insider’s guide to our community’s favorite tools and best practices. The primary audience is new to mid-level Python programmers who are interested in contributing to open source or in beginning a career or starting a company using Python, although casual Python users should also find Part I and Chapter 5 helpful.

The first part will help you choose the text editor or interactive development environment that fits your situation (for example, those using Java frequently may prefer Eclipse with a Python plug-in) and surveys options for other interpreters that may meet needs you don’t yet know Python could address (e.g., there’s a MicroPython implementation based around the ARM Cortex-M4 chip). The second section demonstrates Pythonic style by highlighting exemplary code in the open source community that will hopefully encourage more in-depth reading and experimentation with open source code. The final section briefly surveys the vast galaxy of libraries most commonly used in the Python community—providing an idea of the scope of what Python can do right now.

All of the royalties from the print version of this book will be directly donated to the Django Girls, a giddily joyous global organization dedicated to organizing free Django and Python workshops, creating open-sourced online tutorials, and curating amazing first experiences with technology. Those who wish to contribute to the online version can read more about how to do it at our website.

Conventions Used in This Book

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Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

Tip

This element signifies a tip or suggestion.

Note

This element signifies a general note.

Warning

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Acknowledgments

Welcome, friends, to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python.

This book is, to the best of my knowledge, the first of its kind: designed and curated by a single author (myself—Kenneth), with the majority of the content provided by hundreds of people from all over the world, for free. Never before in the history of mankind has the technology been available to allow a beautiful collaboration of this size and scale.

This book was made possible with:

Community

Love brings us together to conquer all obstacles.

Software projects

Python, Sphinx, Alabaster, and Git.

Services

GitHub and Read the Docs.

Lastly, I’d like to extend a personal thank you to Tanya, who did all the hard work of converting this work into book form and preparing it for publication, and the incredible O’Reilly team—Dawn, Jasmine, Nick, Heather, Nicole, Meg, and the dozens of other people who worked behind the scenes to make this book the best it could be.