Expert Python Programming

Cover 
 Copyright
 Credits
 About the Authors
 About the Reviewer
 www.PacktPub.com
 Table of Contents
 Preface
 Chapter 1: Current Status of Python
 Where are we now and where we are going?
 Why and how does Python change?
 Getting up to date with changes --
PEP documents
 Python 3 adoption at the time of writing this book
 The main differences between Python 3 and Python 2
 Why should I care?
 The main syntax differences and common pitfalls
 Syntax changes
 Changes in the standard library
 Changes in datatypes and collections. The popular tools and techniques used for maintaining cross-version compatibilityNot only CPython
 Why should I care?
 Stackless Python
 Jython
 IronPython
 PyPy
 Modern approaches to Python development
 Application-level isolation of Python environments
 Why isolation?
 Popular solutions
 virtualenv
 venv
 buildout
 Which one to choose?
 System-level environment isolation
 Virtual development environments using Vagrant
 Containerization versus virtualization
 Popular productivity tools
 Custom Python shells --
IPython, bpython, ptpython, and so on. Setting up the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variableIPython
 bpython
 ptpython
 Interactive debuggers
 Useful resources
 Summary
 Chapter 2: Syntax Best Practices --
below the Class Level
 Python\'s built-in types
 Strings and bytes
 Implementation details
 String concatenation
 Collections
 Lists and tuples
 Dictionaries
 Sets
 Beyond basic collections --
the collections module
 Advanced syntax
 Iterators
 The yield statement
 Decorators
 General syntax and possible implementations
 Usage and useful examples
 Context managers --
the with statement
 General syntax and possible implementations. Other syntax elements you may not know yetThe for ... else ... statement
 Function annotations
 The general syntax
 The possible uses
 Summary
 Chapter 3: Syntax Best Practices --
above the Class Level
 Subclassing built-in types
 Accessing methods from superclasses
 Old-style classes and super in Python 2
 Understanding Python\'s Method Resolution Order
 super pitfalls
 Mixing super and explicit class calls
 Heterogeneous arguments
 Best practices
 Advanced attribute access patterns
 Descriptors
 Real-life example --
lazily evaluated attributes
 Properties
 Slots
 Metaprogramming. Decorators --
a method of metaprogrammingClass decorators
 Using the __new__() method to override instance creation process
 Metaclasses
 The general syntax
 New Python 3 syntax for metaclasses
 Metaclass usage
 Metaclass pitfalls
 Some tips on code generation
 exec, eval, and compile
 Abstract Syntax Tree
 Projects using code generation patterns
 Summary
 Chapter 4: Choosing Good Names
 PEP 8 and naming best practices
 Why and when to follow PEP 8?
 Beyond PEP 8 --
team-specific style guidelines
 Naming styles
 Variables
 Constants
 Naming and usage
 Public and private variables.