Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming. 3 Ed

Cover....1

Praise for Python Crash Course....3

Copyright....6

Dedication....7

About the Author and Technical Reviewer....9

Brief Contents....11

Contents in Detail....13

Preface to the Third Edition....29

Acknowledgments....33

Introduction....35

Who Is This Book For?....36

What Can You Expect to Learn?....36

Online Resources....37

Why Python?....38

Part I: Basics....39

Chapter 1: Getting Started....41

Setting Up Your Programming Environment....41

Python Versions....42

Running Snippets of Python Code....42

About the VS Code Editor....42

Python on Different Operating Systems....43

Python on Windows....43

Python on macOS....45

Python on Linux....46

Running a Hello World Program....47

Installing the Python Extension for VS Code....47

Running hello_world.py....48

Troubleshooting....48

Running Python Programs from a Terminal....49

On Windows....50

On macOS and Linux....50

Exercise 1-1: python.org....51

Exercise 1-2: Hello World Typos....51

Exercise 1-3: Infinite Skills....51

Summary....51

Chapter 2: Variables and Simple Data Types....53

What Really Happens When You Run hello_world.py....53

Variables....54

Naming and Using Variables....55

Avoiding Name Errors When Using Variables....55

Variables Are Labels....56

Exercise 2-1: Simple Message....57

Exercise 2-2: Simple Messages....57

Strings....57

Changing Case in a String with Methods....58

Using Variables in Strings....58

Adding Whitespace to Strings with Tabs or Newlines....59

Stripping Whitespace....60

Removing Prefixes....61

Avoiding Syntax Errors with Strings....62

Exercise 2-3: Personal Message....63

Exercise 2-4: Name Cases....63

Exercise 2-5: Famous Quote....63

Exercise 2-6: Famous Quote 2....63

Exercise 2-7: Stripping Names....63

Exercise 2-8: File Extensions....63

Numbers....64

Integers....64

Floats....64

Integers and Floats....65

Underscores in Numbers....66

Multiple Assignment....66

Constants....66

Exercise 2-9: Number Eight....67

Exercise 2-10: Favorite Number....67

Comments....67

How Do You Write Comments?....67

What Kinds of Comments Should You Write?....67

Exercise 2-11: Adding Comments....68

The Zen of Python....68

Exercise 2-12: Zen of Python....69

Summary....70

Chapter 3: Introducing Lists....71

What Is a List?....71

Accessing Elements in a List....72

Index Positions Start at 0, Not 1....72

Using Individual Values from a List....73

Exercise 3-1: Names....74

Exercise 3-2: Greetings....74

Exercise 3-3: Your Own List....74

Modifying, Adding, and Removing Elements....74

Modifying Elements in a List....74

Adding Elements to a List....75

Removing Elements from a List....76

Exercise 3-4: Guest List....79

Exercise 3-5: Changing Guest List....80

Exercise 3-6: More Guests....80

Exercise 3-7: Shrinking Guest List....80

Organizing a List....80

Sorting a List Permanently with the sort() Method....81

Sorting a List Temporarily with the sorted() Function....81

Printing a List in Reverse Order....82

Finding the Length of a List....82

Exercise 3-8: Seeing the World....83

Exercise 3-9: Dinner Guests....83

Exercise 3-10: Every Function....83

Avoiding Index Errors When Working with Lists....84

Exercise 3-11: Intentional Error....85

Summary....85

Chapter 4: Working with Lists....87

Looping Through an Entire List....87

A Closer Look at Looping....88

Doing More Work Within a for Loop....89

Doing Something After a for Loop....90

Avoiding Indentation Errors....91

Forgetting to Indent....91

Forgetting to Indent Additional Lines....92

Indenting Unnecessarily....92

Indenting Unnecessarily After the Loop....93

Forgetting the Colon....93

Exercise 4-1: Pizzas....94

Exercise 4-2: Animals....94

Making Numerical Lists....94

Using the range() Function....95

Using range() to Make a List of Numbers....96

Simple Statistics with a List of Numbers....97

List Comprehensions....97

Exercise 4-3: Counting to Twenty....98

Exercise 4-4: One Million....98

Exercise 4-5: Summing a Million....98

Exercise 4-6: Odd Numbers....98

Exercise 4-7: Threes....98

Exercise 4-8: Cubes....98

Exercise 4-9: Cube Comprehension....98

Working with Part of a List....99

Slicing a List....99

Looping Through a Slice....100

Copying a List....101

Exercise 4-10: Slices....103

Exercise 4-11: My Pizzas, Your Pizzas....103

Exercise 4-12: More Loops....103

Tuples....103

Defining a Tuple....103

Looping Through All Values in a Tuple....104

Writing Over a Tuple....105

Exercise 4-13: Buffet....105

Styling Your Code....106

The Style Guide....106

Indentation....106

Line Length....107

Blank Lines....107

Other Style Guidelines....107

Exercise 4-14: PEP 8....108

Exercise 4-15: Code Review....108

Summary....108

Chapter 5: if Statements....109

A Simple Example....110

Conditional Tests....110

Checking for Equality....110

Ignoring Case When Checking for Equality....111

Checking for Inequality....112

Numerical Comparisons....112

Checking Multiple Conditions....113

Checking Whether a Value Is in a List....114

Checking Whether a Value Is Not in a List....114

Boolean Expressions....115

Exercise 5-1: Conditional Tests....115

Exercise 5-2: More Conditional Tests....116

if Statements....116

Simple if Statements....116

if-else Statements....117

The if-elif-else Chain....118

Using Multiple elif Blocks....119

Omitting the else Block....120

Testing Multiple Conditions....120

Exercise 5-3: Alien Colors #1....122

Exercise 5-4: Alien Colors #2....122

Exercise 5-5: Alien Colors #3....122

Exercise 5-6: Stages of Life....122

Exercise 5-7: Favorite Fruit....123

Using if Statements with Lists....123

Checking for Special Items....123

Checking That a List Is Not Empty....124

Using Multiple Lists....125

Exercise 5-8: Hello Admin....126

Exercise 5-9: No Users....126

Exercise 5-10: Checking Usernames....126

Exercise 5-11: Ordinal Numbers....126

Styling Your if Statements....127

Exercise 5-12: Styling if Statements....127

Exercise 5-13: Your Ideas....127

Summary....127

Chapter 6: Dictionaries....129

A Simple Dictionary....130

Working with Dictionaries....130

Accessing Values in a Dictionary....130

Adding New Key-Value Pairs....131

Starting with an Empty Dictionary....132

Modifying Values in a Dictionary....132

Removing Key-Value Pairs....134

A Dictionary of Similar Objects....134

Using get() to Access Values....135

Exercise 6-1: Person....136

Exercise 6-2: Favorite Numbers....136

Exercise 6-3: Glossary....137

Looping Through a Dictionary....137

Looping Through All Key-Value Pairs....137

Looping Through All the Keys in a Dictionary....139

Looping Through a Dictionary’s Keys in a Particular Order....140

Looping Through All Values in a Dictionary....141

Exercise 6-4: Glossary 2....142

Exercise 6-5: Rivers....143

Exercise 6-6: Polling....143

Nesting....143

A List of Dictionaries....143

A List in a Dictionary....146

A Dictionary in a Dictionary....148

Exercise 6-7: People....149

Exercise 6-8: Pets....149

Exercise 6-9: Favorite Places....149

Exercise 6-10: Favorite Numbers....149

Exercise 6-11: Cities....149

Exercise 6-12: Extensions....149

Summary....149

Chapter 7: User Input and while Loops....151

How the input() Function Works....152

Writing Clear Prompts....152

Using int() to Accept Numerical Input....153

The Modulo Operator....154

Exercise 7-1: Rental Car....155

Exercise 7-2: Restaurant Seating....155

Exercise 7-3: Multiples of Ten....155

Introducing while Loops....155

The while Loop in Action....155

Letting the User Choose When to Quit....156

Using a Flag....158

Using break to Exit a Loop....159

Using continue in a Loop....160

Avoiding Infinite Loops....160

Exercise 7-4: Pizza Toppings....161

Exercise 7-5: Movie Tickets....161

Exercise 7-6: Three Exits....161

Exercise 7-7: Infinity....161

Using a while Loop with Lists and Dictionaries....162

Moving Items from One List to Another....162

Removing All Instances of Specific Values from a List....163

Filling a Dictionary with User Input....163

Exercise 7-8: Deli....165

Exercise 7-9: No Pastrami....165

Exercise 7-10: Dream Vacation....165

Summary....165

Chapter 8: Functions....167

Defining a Function....168

Passing Information to a Function....168

Arguments and Parameters....169

Exercise 8-1: Message....169

Exercise 8-2: Favorite Book....169

Passing Arguments....169

Positional Arguments....170

Keyword Arguments....171

Default Values....172

Equivalent Function Calls....173

Avoiding Argument Errors....174

Exercise 8-3: T-Shirt....174

Exercise 8-4: Large Shirts....175

Exercise 8-5: Cities....175

Return Values....175

Returning a Simple Value....175

Making an Argument Optional....176

Returning a Dictionary....177

Using a Function with a while Loop....178

Exercise 8-6: City Names....179

Exercise 8-7: Album....180

Exercise 8-8: User Albums....180

Passing a List....180

Modifying a List in a Function....181

Preventing a Function from Modifying a List....183

Exercise 8-9: Messages....184

Exercise 8-10: Sending Messages....184

Exercise 8-11: Archived Messages....184

Passing an Arbitrary Number of Arguments....184

Mixing Positional and Arbitrary Arguments....185

Using Arbitrary Keyword Arguments....186

Exercise 8-12: Sandwiches....187

Exercise 8-13: User Profile....187

Exercise 8-14: Cars....187

Storing Your Functions in Modules....187

Importing an Entire Module....188

Importing Specific Functions....189

Using as to Give a Function an Alias....189

Using as to Give a Module an Alias....190

Importing All Functions in a Module....190

Styling Functions....191

Exercise 8-15: Printing Models....192

Exercise 8-16: Imports....192

Exercise 8-17: Styling Functions....192

Summary....192

Chapter 9: Classes....195

Creating and Using a Class....196

Creating the Dog Class....196

The __init__() Method....197

Making an Instance from a Class....197

Exercise 9-1: Restaurant....200

Exercise 9-2: Three Restaurants....200

Exercise 9-3: Users....200

Working with Classes and Instances....200

The Car Class....200

Setting a Default Value for an Attribute....201

Modifying Attribute Values....202

Exercise 9-4: Number Served....204

Exercise 9-5: Login Attempts....205

Inheritance....205

The __init__() Method for a Child Class....205

Defining Attributes and Methods for the Child Class....207

Overriding Methods from the Parent Class....208

Instances as Attributes....208

Modeling Real-World Objects....210

Exercise 9-6: Ice Cream Stand....211

Exercise 9-7: Admin....211

Exercise 9-8: Privileges....211

Exercise 9-9: Battery Upgrade....211

Importing Classes....211

Importing a Single Class....212

Storing Multiple Classes in a Module....213

Importing Multiple Classes from a Module....214

Importing an Entire Module....214

Importing All Classes from a Module....215

Importing a Module into a Module....215

Using Aliases....216

Finding Your Own Workflow....217

Exercise 9-10: Imported Restaurant....217

Exercise 9-11: Imported Admin....217

Exercise 9-12: Multiple Modules....217

The Python Standard Library....217

Exercise 9-13: Dice....218

Exercise 9-14: Lottery....218

Exercise 9-15: Lottery Analysis....218

Exercise 9-16: Python Module of the Week....218

Styling Classes....219

Summary....219

Chapter 10: Files and Exceptions....221

Reading from a File....222

Reading the Contents of a File....222

Relative and Absolute File Paths....224

Accessing a File’s Lines....224

Working with a File’s Contents....225

Large Files: One Million Digits....226

Is Your Birthday Contained in Pi?....227

Exercise 10-1: Learning Python....227

Exercise 10-2: Learning C....228

Exercise 10-3: Simpler Code....228

Writing to a File....228

Writing a Single Line....228

Writing Multiple Lines....229

Exercise 10-4: Guest....230

Exercise 10-5: Guest Book....230

Exceptions....230

Handling the ZeroDivisionError Exception....230

Using try-except Blocks....231

Using Exceptions to Prevent Crashes....231

The else Block....232

Handling the FileNotFoundError Exception....233

Analyzing Text....234

Working with Multiple Files....235

Failing Silently....236

Deciding Which Errors to Report....237

Exercise 10-6: Addition....238

Exercise 10-7: Addition Calculator....238

Exercise 10-8: Cats and Dogs....238

Exercise 10-9: Silent Cats and Dogs....238

Exercise 10-10: Common Words....238

Storing Data....239

Using json.dumps() and json.loads()....239

Saving and Reading User-Generated Data....240

Refactoring....242

Exercise 10-11: Favorite Number....244

Exercise 10-12: Favorite Number Remembered....244

Exercise 10-13: User Dictionary....244

Exercise 10-14: Verify User....244

Summary....245

Chapter 11: Testing Your Code....247

Installing pytest with pip....248

Updating pip....248

Installing pytest....249

Testing a Function....249

Unit Tests and Test Cases....250

A Passing Test....250

Running a Test....251

A Failing Test....252

Responding to a Failed Test....253

Adding New Tests....254

Exercise 11-1: City, Country....255

Exercise 11-2: Population....255

Testing a Class....255

A Variety of Assertions....255

A Class to Test....256

Testing the AnonymousSurvey Class....258

Using Fixtures....259

Exercise 11-3: Employee....261

Summary....261

Part II: Projects....263

Chapter 12: A Ship That Fires Bullets....265

Planning Your Project....266

Installing Pygame....266

Starting the Game Project....267

Creating a Pygame Window and Responding to User Input....267

Controlling the Frame Rate....268

Setting the Background Color....269

Creating a Settings Class....270

Adding the Ship Image....271

Creating the Ship Class....272

Drawing the Ship to the Screen....273

Refactoring: The _check_events() and _update_screen() Methods....275

The _check_events() Method....275

The _update_screen() Method....275

Exercise 12-1: Blue Sky....276

Exercise 12-2: Game Character....276

Piloting the Ship....276

Responding to a Keypress....276

Allowing Continuous Movement....277

Moving Both Left and Right....279

Adjusting the Ship’s Speed....280

Limiting the Ship’s Range....281

Refactoring _check_events()....282

Pressing Q to Quit....282

Running the Game in Fullscreen Mode....283

A Quick Recap....283

alien_invasion.py....284

settings.py....284

ship.py....284

Exercise 12-3: Pygame Documentation....284

Exercise 12-4: Rocket....284

Exercise 12-5: Keys....284

Shooting Bullets....285

Adding the Bullet Settings....285

Creating the Bullet Class....285

Storing Bullets in a Group....286

Firing Bullets....287

Deleting Old Bullets....288

Limiting the Number of Bullets....289

Creating the _update_bullets() Method....290

Exercise 12-6: Sideways Shooter....291

Summary....291

Chapter 13: Aliens!....293

Reviewing the Project....294

Creating the First Alien....294

Creating the Alien Class....295

Creating an Instance of the Alien....295

Building the Alien Fleet....297

Creating a Row of Aliens....297

Refactoring _create_fleet()....298

Adding Rows....299

Exercise 13-1: Stars....301

Exercise 13-2: Better Stars....301

Making the Fleet Move....301

Moving the Aliens Right....301

Creating Settings for Fleet Direction....302

Checking Whether an Alien Has Hit the Edge....303

Dropping the Fleet and Changing Direction....303

Exercise 13-3: Raindrops....304

Exercise 13-4: Steady Rain....304

Shooting Aliens....304

Detecting Bullet Collisions....305

Making Larger Bullets for Testing....306

Repopulating the Fleet....306

Speeding Up the Bullets....307

Refactoring _update_bullets()....307

Exercise 13-5: Sideways Shooter Part 2....308

Ending the Game....308

Detecting Alien-Ship Collisions....308

Responding to Alien-Ship Collisions....309

Aliens That Reach the Bottom of the Screen....311

Game Over!....312

Identifying When Parts of the Game Should Run....313

Exercise 13-6: Game Over....313

Summary....313

Chapter 14: Scoring....315

Adding the Play Button....316

Creating a Button Class....316

Drawing the Button to the Screen....317

Starting the Game....319

Resetting the Game....319

Deactivating the Play Button....320

Hiding the Mouse Cursor....320

Exercise 14-1: Press P to Play....321

Exercise 14-2: Target Practice....321

Leveling Up....321

Modifying the Speed Settings....321

Resetting the Speed....323

Exercise 14-3: Challenging Target Practice....324

Exercise 14-4: Difficulty Levels....324

Scoring....324

Displaying the Score....324

Making a Scoreboard....325

Updating the Score as Aliens Are Shot Down....327

Resetting the Score....327

Making Sure to Score All Hits....328

Increasing Point Values....328

Rounding the Score....329

High Scores....330

Displaying the Level....332

Displaying the Number of Ships....334

Exercise 14-5: All-Time High Score....337

Exercise 14-6: Refactoring....337

Exercise 14-7: Expanding the Game....337

Exercise 14-8: Sideways Shooter, Final Version....337

Summary....337

Chapter 15: Generating Data....339

Installing Matplotlib....340

Plotting a Simple Line Graph....340

Changing the Label Type and Line Thickness....341

Correcting the Plot....343

Using Built-in Styles....344

Plotting and Styling Individual Points with scatter()....344

Plotting a Series of Points with scatter()....346

Calculating Data Automatically....346

Customizing Tick Labels....347

Defining Custom Colors....348

Using a Colormap....348

Saving Your Plots Automatically....349

Exercise 15-1. Cubes....349

Exercise 15-2: Colored Cubes....349

Random Walks....350

Creating the RandomWalk Class....350

Choosing Directions....350

Plotting the Random Walk....351

Generating Multiple Random Walks....352

Styling the Walk....353

Exercise 15-3: Molecular Motion....357

Exercise 15-4: Modified Random Walks....357

Exercise 15-5: Refactoring....357

Rolling Dice with Plotly....357

Installing Plotly....358

Creating the Die Class....358

Rolling the Die....358

Analyzing the Results....359

Making a Histogram....360

Customizing the Plot....361

Rolling Two Dice....362

Further Customizations....363

Rolling Dice of Different Sizes....364

Saving Figures....365

Exercise 15-6: Two D8s....366

Exercise 15-7: Three Dice....366

Exercise 15-8: Multiplication....366

Exercise 15-9: Die Comprehensions....366

Exercise 15-10: Practicing with Both Libraries....366

Summary....366

Chapter 16: Downloading Data....367

The CSV File Format....368

Parsing the CSV File Headers....368

Printing the Headers and Their Positions....369

Extracting and Reading Data....370

Plotting Data in a Temperature Chart....370

The datetime Module....371

Plotting Dates....372

Plotting a Longer Timeframe....374

Plotting a Second Data Series....374

Shading an Area in the Chart....375

Error Checking....376

Downloading Your Own Data....379

Exercise 16-1: Sitka Rainfall....380

Exercise 16-2: Sitka–Death Valley Comparison....380

Exercise 16-3: San Francisco....380

Exercise 16-4: Automatic Indexes....380

Exercise 16-5: Explore....380

Mapping Global Datasets: GeoJSON Format....380

Downloading Earthquake Data....381

Examining GeoJSON Data....381

Making a List of All Earthquakes....383

Extracting Magnitudes....384

Extracting Location Data....384

Building a World Map....385

Representing Magnitudes....386

Customizing Marker Colors....387

Other Color Scales....388

Adding Hover Text....388

Exercise 16-6: Refactoring....390

Exercise 16-7: Automated Title....390

Exercise 16-8: Recent Earthquakes....390

Exercise 16-9: World Fires....390

Summary....390

Chapter 17: Working with APIs....393

Using an API....393

Git and GitHub....394

Requesting Data Using an API Call....394

Installing Requests....395

Processing an API Response....395

Working with the Response Dictionary....396

Summarizing the Top Repositories....399

Monitoring API Rate Limits....400

Visualizing Repositories Using Plotly....400

Styling the Chart....402

Adding Custom Tooltips....403

Adding Clickable Links....404

Customizing Marker Colors....405

More About Plotly and the GitHub API....406

The Hacker News API....406

Exercise 17-1: Other Languages....409

Exercise 17-2: Active Discussions....409

Exercise 17-3: Testing python_repos.py....410

Exercise 17-4: Further Exploration....410

Summary....410

Chapter 18: Getting Started with Django....411

Setting Up a Project....412

Writing a Spec....412

Creating a Virtual Environment....412

Activating the Virtual Environment....413

Installing Django....413

Creating a Project in Django....414

Creating the Database....414

Viewing the Project....415

Exercise 18-1: New Projects....416

Starting an App....417

Defining Models....417

Activating Models....418

The Django Admin Site....419

Defining the Entry Model....422

Migrating the Entry Model....423

Registering Entry with the Admin Site....423

The Django Shell....424

Exercise 18-2: Short Entries....425

Exercise 18-3: The Django API....426

Exercise 18-4: Pizzeria....426

Making Pages: The Learning Log Home Page....426

Mapping a URL....426

Writing a View....428

Writing a Template....428

Exercise 18-5: Meal Planner....430

Exercise 18-6: Pizzeria Home Page....430

Building Additional Pages....430

Template Inheritance....430

The Topics Page....432

Individual Topic Pages....435

Exercise 18-7: Template Documentation....438

Exercise 18-8: Pizzeria Pages....438

Summary....438

Chapter 19: User Accounts....441

Allowing Users to Enter Data....442

Adding New Topics....442

Adding New Entries....446

Editing Entries....450

Exercise 19-1: Blog....453

Setting Up User Accounts....453

The accounts App....453

The Login Page....454

Logging Out....457

The Registration Page....458

Exercise 19-2: Blog Accounts ....461

Allowing Users to Own Their Data....461

Restricting Access with @login_required....461

Connecting Data to Certain Users....463

Restricting Topics Access to Appropriate Users....465

Protecting a User’s Topics....466

Protecting the edit_entry Page....467

Associating New Topics with the Current User....467

Exercise 19-3: Refactoring....468

Exercise 19-4: Protecting new_entry....468

Exercise 19-5: Protected Blog....468

Summary....468

Chapter 20: Styling and Deploying an App....471

Styling Learning Log....472

The django-bootstrap5 App....472

Using Bootstrap to Style Learning Log....472

Modifying base.html....473

Styling the Home Page Using a Jumbotron....478

Styling the Login Page....479

Styling the Topics Page....480

Styling the Entries on the Topic Page....481

Exercise 20-1: Other Forms....483

Exercise 20-2: Stylish Blog....483

Deploying Learning Log....483

Making a Platform.sh Account....483

Installing the Platform.sh CLI....484

Installing platformshconfig....484

Creating a requirements.txt File....484

Additional Deployment Requirements....485

Adding Configuration Files....485

Modifying settings.py for Platform.sh....489

Using Git to Track the Project’s Files....489

Creating a Project on Platform.sh....491

Pushing to Platform.sh....493

Viewing the Live Project....494

Refining the Platform.sh Deployment....494

Creating Custom Error Pages....497

Ongoing Development....498

Deleting a Project on Platform.sh....499

Exercise 20-3: Live Blog....499

Exercise 20-4: Extended Learning Log....500

Summary....500

Appendix A: Installation and Troubleshooting....501

Python on Windows....501

Using py Instead of python....501

Rerunning the Installer....502

Python on macOS....502

Accidentally Installing Apple’s Version of Python....502

Python 2 on Older Versions of macOS....503

Python on Linux....503

Using the Default Python Installation....503

Installing the Latest Version of Python....503

Checking Which Version of Python You’re Using....504

Python Keywords and Built-in Functions....504

Python Keywords....504

Python Built-in Functions....505

Appendix B: Text Editors and IDEs....507

Working Efficiently with VS Code....508

Configuring VS Code....508

VS Code Shortcuts....511

Other Text Editors and IDEs....512

IDLE....512

Geany....512

Sublime Text....512

Emacs and Vim....513

PyCharm....513

Jupyter Notebooks....513

Appendix C: Getting Help....515

First Steps....515

Try It Again....516

Take a Break....516

Refer to This Book’s Resources....516

Searching Online....517

Stack Overflow....517

The Official Python Documentation....517

Official Library Documentation....518

r/learnpython....518

Blog Posts....518

Discord....518

Slack....519

Appendix D: Using Git for Version Control....521

Installing Git....522

Configuring Git....522

Making a Project....522

Ignoring Files....522

Initializing a Repository....523

Checking the Status....523

Adding Files to the Repository....524

Making a Commit....524

Checking the Log....525

The Second Commit....525

Abandoning Changes....526

Checking Out Previous Commits....527

Deleting the Repository....529

Appendix E: Troubleshooting Deployments....531

Understanding Deployments....532

Basic Troubleshooting....532

Follow Onscreen Suggestions....533

Read the Log Output....534

OS-Specific Troubleshooting....535

Deploying from Windows....535

Deploying from macOS....537

Deploying from Linux....537

Other Deployment Approaches....538

Index....541

Resources....553

Back Cover....554

Python Crash Course is the world’s best-selling guide to the Python programming language. This fast-paced, thorough introduction will have you writing programs, solving problems, and developing functioning applications in no time.You’ll start by learning basic programming concepts, such as variables, lists, classes, and loops, and practice writing clean code with exercises for each topic. You’ll also learn how to make your programs interactive and test your code safely before adding it to a project. You’ll put your new knowledge into practice by creating a Space Invaders–inspired arcade game, building a set of data visualizations with Python’s handy libraries, and deploying a simple application online.

As you work through the book, you’ll learn how to:

• Use powerful Python libraries and tools, including pytest, Pygame, Matplotlib, Plotly, and Django
• Make increasingly complex 2D games that respond to keypresses and mouse clicks
• Generate interactive data visualizations using a variety of datasets
• Build apps that allow users to create accounts and manage their own data, and deploy your apps online
• Troubleshoot coding errors and solve common programming problems

New to this edition: This third edition is completely revised to reflect the latest in Python code. New and updated coverage includes VS Code for text editing, the pathlib module for file handling, pytest for testing your code, as well as the latest features of Matplotlib, Plotly, and Django.If you’ve been thinking about digging into programming, Python Crash Course will provide you with the skills to write real programs fast. Why wait any longer? Start your engines and code!