Python Course

Advanced Topics

"If you're talking about Java in particular, Python is about the best fit you can get amongst all the other languages. Yet the funny thing is, from a language point of view, JavaScript has a lot in common with Python, but it is sort of a restricted subset. "
(Guido van Rossum, author of the programming language Python)
He also said: "Yes, I definitely believe that it [ Python ] has some good cross-platform properties. Object orientation was one of the techniques I used to make Python platform independent. "

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We also like to thank Denise Mitchinson for providing the beautiful style sheet of this website.
www.mitchinson.net

These Advanced Topics in German / Deutsche Übersetzung: Weiterführende Themen

Classroom Training Courses

This website contains a free and extensive online tutorial by Bernd Klein with material from his live Python courses. You can attend one of his courses in Paris, London, Toronto, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Den Haag (The Hague) or Lake Constance / Zurich.
It is also possible to book an on-site training course at your company or institute.

If you are interested in an instructor-led classroom training course, you may have a look at the Python courses
by Bernd Klein at Bodenseo.
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Python Tricks

"Python tricks" is a tough one, cuz the language is so clean. E.g., C makes an art of confusing pointers with arrays and strings, which leads to lotsa neat pointer tricks; APL mistakes everything for an array, leading to neat one-liners; and Perl confuses everything period, making each line a joyous adventure . (Tim Peters, Pythoneer who formulated the "Zen of Python")

Python compared to Lisp

Greenspun's "Tenth Rule of Programming" states:
Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. Sounds complicated? Lisp is complicated. Guido van Rossum compared it - or to be precise Common Lisp and Scheme - to Python with the following words: "These languages are close to Python in their dynamic semantics, but so different in their approach to syntax that a comparison becomes almost a religious argument: is Lisp's lack of syntax an advantage or a disadvantage? It should be noted that Python has introspective capabilities similar to those of Lisp, and Python programs can construct and execute program fragments on the fly. Usually, real-world properties are decisive: Common Lisp is big (in every sense), and the Scheme world is fragmented between many incompatible versions, where Python has a single, free, compact implementation."
(excerpt from "Comparing Python to Other Languages" by Guido van Rossum)

Wizards and Magic

"Things in Python are very clear, but are harder to find than the secrets of wizards. Things in Perl are easy to find, but look like arcane spells to invoke magic."

Advanced Topics with Python

System Programming with Python

"System focused programming" might be the better term than "System Programming". System programming or systems programming means often only the activity of "programming system software", programs which are often part of the operating system. Our topics in this section of our online course deal with Pipes, Threads and Forks and starting and using shell commands and scripts from a Python script.

Python has various modules to support system focused programming.

The sys module is introduced in the first chapter. A focal point are the data streams (stdin, stdout, stderr) and redirections of streams.

The interaction between is the focus in the following chapter of our course.
The interaction between Python and the Linux Shell is another topic of our advanced section. This chapter is followed by Forks and Forking.

You can learn more about threads and threading in our Introduction into Threads. We show how to find the active IP addresses in a local network by using forks.

The chapter, which is subtitled as "Pipe, Pipes and '99 Bottles of Beer'" might be interesting to teetotallers as well, because it's not about alcohol but dealing with alcohol, even though the "99 bottles of beer" in the title give the impression. Instead, we show you how to write a program which is construing the famous American song "99 bottles of beer" by using forked processes and Pipes. So, if you need a good example of pipes and forks working together you will find it here.

Graph Theory

We have three chapters dealing with Graphs.

• A general introduction into the Graph theory and the corresponding Python code can be found in "Graphs in Python" You will also here the implementations of a graph class with essential functionalities for graph creation, manipulation and calculations.
• Introduction into the module pygraph
• Introduction into the module NetworkX

Computer Science and Computer Linguistics

Finite State Machines are not only used in computer science but in natural language processing as well. We cover the concept of the Finite State Machine in great detail, so that even an amateur in Computer Science can understand the examples. At least we hope so.

Alan Turing's Turing Machines and above all the underlying theory is a must for every computer scientist. We show a simple implementation of a Turing Machine.

If you are interested in Classifying documents, the Introduction into Text Classification using Naive Bayes and our Python Implementation of Text Classification will be the right chapters for you.

Numerical Computations with Python

If you want to get efficient and fast results with arrays and matrices, the NumPy module of Python is definitely the right tool collection for you. You will find answers to your questions in our tutorial, i.e. in our chapters "NumPy Module" and "Matrix Arithmetic".

The module matplotlib is all you will need to plot and depict your data.

We also provide an introduction into Linear Combination

Music

It's also possible to create scores with Python: You can find a complete working example in Creating Musical Scores With Python

If you feel that the above topics are to complicated or sophisticated for you, you might like our course for beginners in Python. You find a documented link list in the following lines:

Databases with Python

An introduction into using database interfaces in Python for SQL, MySQL and SQLite

"Games"

What you find are not real games! We show a recursive solution to Towers of Hanoi and a game Cows and Bulls better known in a commercial version called "Mastermind".