Python for Programmers

This book is a Python book for readers who have studied programming and already have some programming experience. The author, Qiu Zongyan, is a professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University. The book does not explain programming from scratch; instead, it seeks to build on the reader's existing programming experience to explain the characteristics of the Python language and the in-depth concepts needed to use it accurately and correctly. The book has five chapters. Chapter 1 starts from expressions and computation, variables and assignment, conditionals and loops, and function definition, sorting out Python's basic syntax and programming techniques and discussing recursion, lambda expressions, scope, default parameters, and keyword arguments. Chapter 2 introduces data construction and organization tools such as lists, tuples, sequences and comprehensions, string formatting, files, dictionaries, and sets, as well as text processing and data persistence. Chapter 3 goes deeper into semantics, discussing variables and objects, environments and state, generator functions and closures, exception handling mechanisms, and program efficiency. Chapter 4 covers data abstraction, classes and objects, inheritance and multiple inheritance, special methods and container classes, iterators, and context management, with linked lists as a practical example. Chapter 5 moves to advanced topics, including program and module organization, the import system, dynamic compilation and execution, function decorators and class decorators, metaclasses and descriptors, and other advanced object-oriented mechanisms, as well as coroutines, asynchronous iteration, and async with. The book ends with a concise Python language handbook, a standard function table, an introduction to the IDLE development environment, and the standard library packages used in the book for easy reference.