Learn Python the Hard Way
A Very Simple Introduction to the Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code
3rd Edition
Published on 19. September 2013
310 pages
978-0-13-312433-0 (ISBN)
Description
You Will Learn Python!
Zed Shaw has perfected the world's best system for learning Python. Follow it and you will succeed-just like the hundreds of thousands of beginners Zed has taught to date! You bring the discipline, commitment, and persistence; the author supplies everything else.
In Learn Python the Hard Way, Third Edition, you'll learn Python by working through 52 brilliantly crafted exercises. Read them. Type their code precisely. (No copying and pasting!) Fix your mistakes. Watch the programs run. As you do, you'll learn how software works; what good programs look like; how to read, write, and think about code; and how to find and fix your mistakes using tricks professional programmers use. Most importantly, you'll learn the following, which you need to start writing excellent Python software of your own:
Installing a complete Python environment
Organizing and writing code
Basic mathematics
Variables
Strings and text
Interacting with users
Working with files
Looping and logic
Data structures using lists and dictionaries
Program design
Object-oriented programming
Inheritance and composition
Modules, classes, and objects
Python packaging
Debugging
Automated testing
Basic game development
Basic web development
It'll be hard at first. But soon, you'll just get it-and that will feel great!
This tutorial will reward you for every minute you put into it. Soon, you'll know one of the world's most powerful, popular programming languages. You'll be a Python programmer.
Watch Zed, too! The accompanying DVD contains 5+ hours of passionate, powerful teaching: a complete Python video course!
Zed Shaw has perfected the world's best system for learning Python. Follow it and you will succeed-just like the hundreds of thousands of beginners Zed has taught to date! You bring the discipline, commitment, and persistence; the author supplies everything else.
In Learn Python the Hard Way, Third Edition, you'll learn Python by working through 52 brilliantly crafted exercises. Read them. Type their code precisely. (No copying and pasting!) Fix your mistakes. Watch the programs run. As you do, you'll learn how software works; what good programs look like; how to read, write, and think about code; and how to find and fix your mistakes using tricks professional programmers use. Most importantly, you'll learn the following, which you need to start writing excellent Python software of your own:
Installing a complete Python environment
Organizing and writing code
Basic mathematics
Variables
Strings and text
Interacting with users
Working with files
Looping and logic
Data structures using lists and dictionaries
Program design
Object-oriented programming
Inheritance and composition
Modules, classes, and objects
Python packaging
Debugging
Automated testing
Basic game development
Basic web development
It'll be hard at first. But soon, you'll just get it-and that will feel great!
This tutorial will reward you for every minute you put into it. Soon, you'll know one of the world's most powerful, popular programming languages. You'll be a Python programmer.
Watch Zed, too! The accompanying DVD contains 5+ hours of passionate, powerful teaching: a complete Python video course!
More details
Series
Edition
3rd edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Boston
United States
Publishing group
Pearson Education (US)
Target group
College/higher education
File size
5,65 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-13-312433-0 (9780133124330)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Zed Shaw
Learn Python the Hard Way
A Very Simple Introduction to the Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code
Book
10/2013
3rd Edition
Addison Wesley
€36.49
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Zed A. Shaw is the author of the popular online books Learn Python the Hard Way, Learn Ruby the Hard Way, and Learn C the Hard Way. He is also the creator of several open source software projects like Mongrel, Lamson, Mongrel2, and has been programming and writing for nearly 20 years.
Content
Preface 1
Acknowledgments 1
The Hard Way Is Easier 1
Do Not Copy-Paste 2
A Note on Practice and Persistence 3
A Warning for the Smarties 3
Exercise 0: The Setup 6
Mac OSX 6
Windows 7
Linux 9
Warnings for Beginners 10
Exercise 1: A Good First Program 12
What You Should See 14
Study Drills 15
Common Student Questions 16
Exercise 2: Comments and Pound Characters 18
What You Should See 18
Study Drills 18
Common Student Questions 19
Exercise 3: Numbers and Math 20
What You Should See 21
Study Drills 21
Common Student Questions 22
Exercise 4: Variables and Names 24
What You Should See 25
Study Drills 25
Common Student Questions 25
Exercise 5: More Variables and Printing 28
What You Should See 28
Study Drills 29
Common Student Questions 29
Exercise 6: Strings and Text 30
What You Should See 31
Study Drills 31
Common Student Questions 31
Exercise 7: More Printing. 32
What You Should See 32
Study Drills 32
Common Student Questions 33
Exercise 8: Printing, Printing 34
What You Should See 34
Study Drills 34
Common Student Questions 34
Exercise 9: Printing, Printing, Printing 36
What You Should See 36
Study Drills 36
Common Student Questions 37
Exercise 10: What Was That? 38
What You Should See 39
Escape Sequences 39
Study Drills 40
Common Student Questions 40
Exercise 11: Asking Questions 42
What You Should See 42
Study Drills 43
Common Student Questions 43
Exercise 12: Prompting People 44
What You Should See 44
Study Drills 44
Common Student Questions 45
Exercise 13: Parameters, Unpacking, Variables 46
Hold Up! Features Have Another Name 46
What You Should See 47
Study Drills 48
Common Student Questions 48
Exercise 14: Prompting and Passing 50
What You Should See 50
Study Drills 51
Common Student Questions 51
Exercise 15: Reading Files 54
What You Should See 55
Study Drills 55
Common Student Questions 56
Exercise 16: Reading and Writing Files 58
What You Should See 59
Study Drills 59
Common Student Questions 60
Exercise 17: More Files 62
What You Should See 63
Study Drills 63
Common Student Questions 63
Exercise 18: Names, Variables, Code, Functions 66
What You Should See 67
Study Drills 68
Common Student Questions 68
Exercise 19: Functions and Variables 70
What You Should See 71
Study Drills 71
Common Student Questions 71
Exercise 20: Functions and Files 74
What You Should See 75
Study Drills 75
Common Student Questions 75
Exercise 21: Functions Can Return Something 78
What You Should See 79
Study Drills 79
Common Student Questions 80
Exercise 22: What Do You Know So Far? 81
What You Are Learning 81
Exercise 23: Read Some Code 82
Exercise 24: More Practice 84
What You Should See 85
Study Drills 85
Common Student Questions 85
Exercise 25: Even More Practice 86
What You Should See 87
Study Drills 88
Common Student Questions 89
Exercise 26: Congratulations, Take a Test! 90
Common Student Questions 90
Exercise 27: Memorizing Logic 92
The Truth Terms 92
The Truth Tables 93
Common Student Questions 94
Exercise 28: Boolean Practice 96
What You Should See 98
Study Drills 98
Common Student Questions 98
Exercise 29: What If 100
What You Should See 100
Study Drills 101
Common Student Questions 101
Exercise 30: Else and If 102
What You Should See 103
Study Drills 103
Common Student Questions 103
Exercise 31: Making Decisions 104
What You Should See 105
Study Drills 105
Common Student Questions 105
Exercise 32: Loops and Lists 106
What You Should See 107
Study Drills 108
Common Student Questions 108
Exercise 33: While-Loops 110
What You Should See 111
Study Drills 111
Common Student Questions 112
Exercise 34: Accessing Elements of Lists 114
Study Drills 115
Exercise 35: Branches and Functions 116
What You Should See 117
Study Drills 118
Common Student Questions 118
Exercise 36: Designing and Debugging 120
Rules for If-Statements 120
Rules for Loops 120
Tips for Debugging 121
Homework 121
Exercise 37: Symbol Review 122
Keywords 122
Data Types 123
String Escape Sequences 124
String Formats 124
Operators 125
Reading Code 126
Study Drills 127
Common Student Questions 127
Exercise 38: Doing Things to Lists 128
What You Should See 129
Study Drills 130
Common Student Questions 130
Exercise 39: Dictionaries, Oh Lovely Dictionaries 132
What You Should See 134
Study Drills 135
Common Student Questions 135
Exercise 40: Modules, Classes, and Objects 138
Modules Are Like Dictionaries 138
What You Should See 142
Study Drills 142
Common Student Questions 143
Exercise 41: Learning to Speak Object Oriented 144
Word Drills 144
Phrase Drills 144
Combined Drills 145
A Reading Test 145
Practice English to Code 147
Reading More Code 148
Common Student Questions 148
Exercise 42: Is-A, Has-A, Objects, and Classes 150
How This Looks in Code 151
About class Name(object) 153
Study Drills 153
Common Student Questions 154
Exercise 43: Basic Object-Oriented Analysis and Design 156
The Analysis of a Simple Game Engine 157
Top Down vs. Bottom Up 161
The Code for "Gothons from Planet Percal #25" 162
What You Should See 167
Study Drills 168
Common Student Questions 168
Exercise 44: Inheritance vs. Composition 170
What Is Inheritance? 170
The Reason for super() 175
Composition 176
When to Use Inheritance or Composition 177
Study Drills 177
Common Student Questions 178
Exercise 45: You Make a Game 180
Evaluating Your Game 180
Function Style 181
Class Style 181
Code Style 182
Good Comments 182
Evaluate Your Game 183
Exercise 46: A Project Skeleton 184
Installing Python Packages 184
Creating the Skeleton Project Directory 185
Testing Your Setup 187
Using the Skeleton 188
Required Quiz 188
Common Student Questions 189
Exercise 47: Automated Testing 190
Writing a Test Case 190
Testing Guidelines 192
What You Should See 192
Study Drills 193
Common Student Questions 193
Exercise 48: Advanced User Input 194
Our Game Lexicon 194
What You Should Test 196
Design Hints 198
Study Drills 198
Common Student Questions 198
Exercise 49: Making Sentences 200
Match and Peek 200
The Sentence Grammar 201
A Word on Exceptions 203
What You Should Test 204
Study Drills 204
Common Student Questions 204
Exercise 50: Your First Website 206
Installing lpthw.web 206
Make a Simple "Hello World" Project 207
What's Going On? 208
Fixing Errors 209
Create Basic Templates 209
Study Drills 211
Common Student Questions 211
Exercise 51: Getting Input from a Browser 214
How the Web Works 214
How Forms Work 216
Creating HTML Forms 218
Creating a Layout Template 220
Writing Automated Tests for Forms 221
Study Drills 223
Common Student Questions 224
Exercise 52: The Start of Your Web Game 226
Refactoring the Exercise 43 Game 226
Sessions and Tracking Users 231
Creating an Engine 232
Your Final Exam 235
Common Student Questions 236
Next Steps 237
How to Learn Any Programming Language 238
Advice from an Old Programmer 241
Appendix: Command Line Crash Course 243
Introduction: Shut Up and Shell 243
Exercise 1: The Setup 245
Exercise 2: Paths, Folders, Directories (pwd) 248
Exercise 3: If You Get Lost 250
Exercise 4: Make a Directory (mkdir) 250
Exercise 5: Change Directory (cd) 252
Exercise 6: List Directory (ls) 256
Exercise 7: Remove Directory (rmdir) 260
Exercise 8: Move Around (pushd, popd) 262
Exercise 9: Make Empty Files (Touch, New-Item) 265
Exercise 10: Copy a File (cp) 266
Exercise 11: Move a File (mv) 269
Exercise 12: View a File (less, MORE) 271
Exercise 13: Stream a File (cat) 272
Exercise 14: Remove a File (rm) 273
Exercise 15: Exit Your Terminal (exit) 275
Command Line Next Steps 276
Index 279
Acknowledgments 1
The Hard Way Is Easier 1
Do Not Copy-Paste 2
A Note on Practice and Persistence 3
A Warning for the Smarties 3
Exercise 0: The Setup 6
Mac OSX 6
Windows 7
Linux 9
Warnings for Beginners 10
Exercise 1: A Good First Program 12
What You Should See 14
Study Drills 15
Common Student Questions 16
Exercise 2: Comments and Pound Characters 18
What You Should See 18
Study Drills 18
Common Student Questions 19
Exercise 3: Numbers and Math 20
What You Should See 21
Study Drills 21
Common Student Questions 22
Exercise 4: Variables and Names 24
What You Should See 25
Study Drills 25
Common Student Questions 25
Exercise 5: More Variables and Printing 28
What You Should See 28
Study Drills 29
Common Student Questions 29
Exercise 6: Strings and Text 30
What You Should See 31
Study Drills 31
Common Student Questions 31
Exercise 7: More Printing. 32
What You Should See 32
Study Drills 32
Common Student Questions 33
Exercise 8: Printing, Printing 34
What You Should See 34
Study Drills 34
Common Student Questions 34
Exercise 9: Printing, Printing, Printing 36
What You Should See 36
Study Drills 36
Common Student Questions 37
Exercise 10: What Was That? 38
What You Should See 39
Escape Sequences 39
Study Drills 40
Common Student Questions 40
Exercise 11: Asking Questions 42
What You Should See 42
Study Drills 43
Common Student Questions 43
Exercise 12: Prompting People 44
What You Should See 44
Study Drills 44
Common Student Questions 45
Exercise 13: Parameters, Unpacking, Variables 46
Hold Up! Features Have Another Name 46
What You Should See 47
Study Drills 48
Common Student Questions 48
Exercise 14: Prompting and Passing 50
What You Should See 50
Study Drills 51
Common Student Questions 51
Exercise 15: Reading Files 54
What You Should See 55
Study Drills 55
Common Student Questions 56
Exercise 16: Reading and Writing Files 58
What You Should See 59
Study Drills 59
Common Student Questions 60
Exercise 17: More Files 62
What You Should See 63
Study Drills 63
Common Student Questions 63
Exercise 18: Names, Variables, Code, Functions 66
What You Should See 67
Study Drills 68
Common Student Questions 68
Exercise 19: Functions and Variables 70
What You Should See 71
Study Drills 71
Common Student Questions 71
Exercise 20: Functions and Files 74
What You Should See 75
Study Drills 75
Common Student Questions 75
Exercise 21: Functions Can Return Something 78
What You Should See 79
Study Drills 79
Common Student Questions 80
Exercise 22: What Do You Know So Far? 81
What You Are Learning 81
Exercise 23: Read Some Code 82
Exercise 24: More Practice 84
What You Should See 85
Study Drills 85
Common Student Questions 85
Exercise 25: Even More Practice 86
What You Should See 87
Study Drills 88
Common Student Questions 89
Exercise 26: Congratulations, Take a Test! 90
Common Student Questions 90
Exercise 27: Memorizing Logic 92
The Truth Terms 92
The Truth Tables 93
Common Student Questions 94
Exercise 28: Boolean Practice 96
What You Should See 98
Study Drills 98
Common Student Questions 98
Exercise 29: What If 100
What You Should See 100
Study Drills 101
Common Student Questions 101
Exercise 30: Else and If 102
What You Should See 103
Study Drills 103
Common Student Questions 103
Exercise 31: Making Decisions 104
What You Should See 105
Study Drills 105
Common Student Questions 105
Exercise 32: Loops and Lists 106
What You Should See 107
Study Drills 108
Common Student Questions 108
Exercise 33: While-Loops 110
What You Should See 111
Study Drills 111
Common Student Questions 112
Exercise 34: Accessing Elements of Lists 114
Study Drills 115
Exercise 35: Branches and Functions 116
What You Should See 117
Study Drills 118
Common Student Questions 118
Exercise 36: Designing and Debugging 120
Rules for If-Statements 120
Rules for Loops 120
Tips for Debugging 121
Homework 121
Exercise 37: Symbol Review 122
Keywords 122
Data Types 123
String Escape Sequences 124
String Formats 124
Operators 125
Reading Code 126
Study Drills 127
Common Student Questions 127
Exercise 38: Doing Things to Lists 128
What You Should See 129
Study Drills 130
Common Student Questions 130
Exercise 39: Dictionaries, Oh Lovely Dictionaries 132
What You Should See 134
Study Drills 135
Common Student Questions 135
Exercise 40: Modules, Classes, and Objects 138
Modules Are Like Dictionaries 138
What You Should See 142
Study Drills 142
Common Student Questions 143
Exercise 41: Learning to Speak Object Oriented 144
Word Drills 144
Phrase Drills 144
Combined Drills 145
A Reading Test 145
Practice English to Code 147
Reading More Code 148
Common Student Questions 148
Exercise 42: Is-A, Has-A, Objects, and Classes 150
How This Looks in Code 151
About class Name(object) 153
Study Drills 153
Common Student Questions 154
Exercise 43: Basic Object-Oriented Analysis and Design 156
The Analysis of a Simple Game Engine 157
Top Down vs. Bottom Up 161
The Code for "Gothons from Planet Percal #25" 162
What You Should See 167
Study Drills 168
Common Student Questions 168
Exercise 44: Inheritance vs. Composition 170
What Is Inheritance? 170
The Reason for super() 175
Composition 176
When to Use Inheritance or Composition 177
Study Drills 177
Common Student Questions 178
Exercise 45: You Make a Game 180
Evaluating Your Game 180
Function Style 181
Class Style 181
Code Style 182
Good Comments 182
Evaluate Your Game 183
Exercise 46: A Project Skeleton 184
Installing Python Packages 184
Creating the Skeleton Project Directory 185
Testing Your Setup 187
Using the Skeleton 188
Required Quiz 188
Common Student Questions 189
Exercise 47: Automated Testing 190
Writing a Test Case 190
Testing Guidelines 192
What You Should See 192
Study Drills 193
Common Student Questions 193
Exercise 48: Advanced User Input 194
Our Game Lexicon 194
What You Should Test 196
Design Hints 198
Study Drills 198
Common Student Questions 198
Exercise 49: Making Sentences 200
Match and Peek 200
The Sentence Grammar 201
A Word on Exceptions 203
What You Should Test 204
Study Drills 204
Common Student Questions 204
Exercise 50: Your First Website 206
Installing lpthw.web 206
Make a Simple "Hello World" Project 207
What's Going On? 208
Fixing Errors 209
Create Basic Templates 209
Study Drills 211
Common Student Questions 211
Exercise 51: Getting Input from a Browser 214
How the Web Works 214
How Forms Work 216
Creating HTML Forms 218
Creating a Layout Template 220
Writing Automated Tests for Forms 221
Study Drills 223
Common Student Questions 224
Exercise 52: The Start of Your Web Game 226
Refactoring the Exercise 43 Game 226
Sessions and Tracking Users 231
Creating an Engine 232
Your Final Exam 235
Common Student Questions 236
Next Steps 237
How to Learn Any Programming Language 238
Advice from an Old Programmer 241
Appendix: Command Line Crash Course 243
Introduction: Shut Up and Shell 243
Exercise 1: The Setup 245
Exercise 2: Paths, Folders, Directories (pwd) 248
Exercise 3: If You Get Lost 250
Exercise 4: Make a Directory (mkdir) 250
Exercise 5: Change Directory (cd) 252
Exercise 6: List Directory (ls) 256
Exercise 7: Remove Directory (rmdir) 260
Exercise 8: Move Around (pushd, popd) 262
Exercise 9: Make Empty Files (Touch, New-Item) 265
Exercise 10: Copy a File (cp) 266
Exercise 11: Move a File (mv) 269
Exercise 12: View a File (less, MORE) 271
Exercise 13: Stream a File (cat) 272
Exercise 14: Remove a File (rm) 273
Exercise 15: Exit Your Terminal (exit) 275
Command Line Next Steps 276
Index 279
