Python (2025-10-13 - 2025-10-15)

Course Info

• Github: jfasch/2025-10-13

• Material: Python Programming

• Original Agenda: Agenda: Python (2025-10-13 - 2025-10-15)

Setup

• Python Installation

• Visual Studio Code for Python Programming

Day 1: Basics

Datatypes

• Blahblah

• Hello World

• Running Python Programs

• Syntax etc.

• Variables

• Datatypes

• Boolean

• Compound Datatypes

• Commandline Arguments (sys.argv)

Exercises

• Exercise: Mixed List (Interactive Interpreter)

• Exercise: Mixed List (Executable Program)

• Exercise: Digit to English Word

• Exercise: Dictionary: Errors?

More About Datatypes

• Sequential Datatypes

• Indexing and Slicing

• References, (Im)mutability

• More About Strings

• Miscellaneous String Methods

• More About Lists

• More About Dictionaries

• More About Sets

Control Flow, Sequences, Iteration

• The if Statement

• while Loops

• for Loops

• The range Function

Exercises

• Exercise: Primeness (while)

• Exercise: Primeness (for)

Day 2: Towards Real Programming

Cleanup Mess From Yesterday

All participants know, from other programming languages they speak, what a function is. A didactical masterpiece, at the end of yesterday’s course, was to show a Python generator before showing what a Python function is. Ah yes, comprehension had also confused people. Now, at 8am, with fresh minds in the audience, lets clear this up.

• Implementing A Fibonacci Number Generator

• Comprehensions (List, Dictionary, Set)

Functions

• Functions (Slideshow)

• Functions: Global and Local Scope (Livehacking Screenplay)

Exercises

• Exercise: Primeness (Function)

File IO, Encoding

• Encoding

• File I/O

Exercises

• Exercise: Eliminate Empty/Comment-Only Lines

Modules

• Modules and Packages

Project Management, Testing

From Python: Project/Package Management:

• pytest Introduction, By Example

• Virtual Environments

• Python Package Index

Afternoon Hacking, Test Driven Development (Exercises)

From From dict Records To Simple (Data) Classes:

• Exercise: Split Strings To User Dictionaries

• Exercise: Write User Records To JSON File

• Exercise: Convert User Records To JSON

Classes: Introduction

From Object Oriented Programming

• Classes And Dictionaries

• Constructor

• Methods

Day 3: More OO, Advanced Stuff

Morning Wakeup (At 7am 🤨)

Duck Typing: Good? Bad?

• Classes everywhere

  • Functions are callable: f.__call__()

  • Generators

    >>> x = g()
    >>> type(x)
    <class 'generator'>
    

    • Iterable: anything that has __iter__() (and __next__(), on the iterator)

  • Classes/types are callable: Person.__call__() ⟶ instantiation of a type

  • Modules

    >>> import sys
    >>> type(sys)
    <class 'module'>
    

• And inheritance? No:

  • File-like: anything that behaves like a file (see, for example, io.StringIO)

  • Callable

  • Iterable

Context Managers (with)

We’ve been using the with statement lately for file I/O. Lets have a quick look at what that is …

• Context Managers: The with Statement

OO, Continued (And Exceptions)

• str() And repr()

• Properties

• collections.namedtuple

• Inheritance

• Abstract Base Classes (abc), And Duck Typing

Exception are classes too; every exception has its place in an entire hierarchy starting at BaseException.

• Exception Handling

Exercises

Lets use classes in our exercise project that we started yesterday.

• Exercise: Split Strings To User Objects

• Exercise: Write User Objects To JSON File

• Exercise: Convert User Records To JSON (Modernized)

Random Cool Things

*args And **kwargs, Closures, Decorators, …

• Positional and Keyword Arguments

• Closures

• Decorators

Batteries Included: Tour Through The Standard Library

• Commandline Parsing with argparse

• collections

• csv

• datetime

• html

• itertools

• json

• logging

• multiprocessing

• shutil

• subprocess

• tarfile

• threading

• zipfile

I strongly expressed my enthusiasm for asyncio, but this would probably justify a course of its own.

One question was if there was anything to build ASCII art GUIs, though, and I was quick to show Textualize (which is an asyncio user btw).