Table of Contents

Getting Started – One Environment per Project

Interactive Python Interpreters

Pythonic Syntax and Common Pitfalls

Pythonic Design Patterns

Functional Programming – Readability Versus Brevity

Decorators – Enabling Code Reuse by Decorating

Generators and Coroutines – Infinity, One Step at a Time

Metaclasses – Making Classes (Not Instances) Smarter

Documentation – How to Use Sphinx and reStructuredText

Testing and Logging – Preparing for Bugs

Debugging – Solving the Bugs

Performance – Tracking and Reducing Your Memory and CPU Usage

asyncio – Multithreading without Threads

Multiprocessing – When a Single CPU Core Is Not Enough

Scientific Python and Plotting

Artificial Intelligence

Extensions in C/C++, System Calls, and C/C++ Libraries

Packaging – Creating Your Own Libraries or Applications

About the Author

Rick van Hattem is an experienced programmer, entrepreneur, Stack Overflow veteran, and software/database architect with more than 20 years of programming experience, including 15 years with Python. He has extensive experience with high-performance architecture featuring large amounts of concurrent users and/or data. Rick has founded several start-ups and has consulted many companies, including a few Y Combinator start-ups and several large businesses