Advanced Python Programming

Course Outline

• Python refresher
  • Built-in data types
  • Lists and tuples
  • Dictionaries and sets
  • Program structure
  • Files and console I/O
  • If statement
  • Built-in functions
  • User-defined functions
  • Modules and packages
  • Basic OOP

• OS services
  • The OS and OS.path modules
  • Environment variables
  • Launching external commands with subprocess
  • Walking directory trees
  • Paths, directories, and filenames
  • Working with file systems

• Dates and times
  • Basic date and time classes
  • Different time formats
  • Converting between formats
  • Formatting dates and times
  • Parsing date/time information

• Binary data
  • What is binary data?
  • Binary vs. text
  • Using the Struct module

• Pythonic programming
  • The Zen of Python
  • Tuples
  • Advanced unpacking
  • Sorting
  • Lambda functions
  • List comprehensions
  • Generator expressions
  • String formatting

• Functions, modules and packages
  • Four types of function parameters
  • Four levels of name scoping
  • Single/multi-dispatch
  • Relative imports
  • Using __init__ effectively
  • Documentation best practices

• Enhancing classes
  • Class/static data and methods
  • Inheritance (or composition)
  • Abstract base classes
  • Creating attributes with attr
  • Implementing protocols (context, iterator, etc.)

• Metaprogramming
  • Implicit properties
  • Globals() and locals()
  • Working with object attributes
  • The inspect module
  • Callable classes
  • Decorators
  • Monkey patching

• Developer tools
  • Analyzing programs with pylint
  • Using the debugger
  • Profiling code
  • Testing speed with benchmarking

• Unit testing with PyTest
  • What is a unit test
  • Creating test cases
  • Writing and running tests
  • Test harnesses
  • Working with fixtures

• Database access
  • The database API
  • Available interfaces
  • Connecting to a server
  • Creating and executing a cursor
  • Fetching data
  • Parameterized statements
  • Using metadata
  • Transaction control
  • ORMs and NoSQL overview

• PyQt
  • Overview
  • Qt Architecture
  • Using designer
  • Standard widgets
  • Event handling
  • Extras

• Network programming
  • Built-in classes
  • Using requests
  • Grabbing web pages
  • Sending email
  • Working with binary data
  • Consuming RESTful services
  • Remote access (SSH)

• Multiprogramming
  • The threading module
  • Sharing variables
  • The queue module
  • The multiprocessing module
  • Creating pools
  • About async programming

• Scripting for system administration
  • Running external programs
  • Parsing arguments
  • Creating filters to read text files
  • Logging

• Serializing data
  • Working with XML
  • XML modules in Python
  • Getting started with ElementTree
  • Parsing XML
  • Updating an XML tree
  • Creating a new document
  • About JSON
  • Reading JSON
  • Writing JSON
  • Reading/writing CSV files
  • YAML, other formats as time permits

• Advanced data handling [as time permits]
  • Discover the collections module
  • Use defaultdict, Counter, and namedtuple
  • Create dataclasses
  • Store data offline with pickle

• Type hinting [as time permits]
  • Annotate variables
  • Learn what type hinting does NOT do
  • Use the typing module for detailed type hints
  • Understand
  • Write stub interfaces