Python Without Fear

Praise for this book, Python Without Fear

“This is really a great book. I wish I’d had it when I was learning Python.”

–John M. Wargo, author of Apache Cordova 4 Programming

Praise for the previous book in the series, C++ Without Fear

“I’m in love with your C++ Without Fear book. It keeps me awake for hours during the night. Thanks to you, I got most of the idea in just a few hours.”

–Laura Viral, graduate physics student at CERN and Istanbul, Turkey

“It’s hard to tell where I began and ended with your book. I felt like I woke up and literally knew how to write C++

code. I can’t overstate the confidence you gave me.”

– Danny Grady, senior programmer/analyst at a Fortune 500 Company

Whether you’re new to programming or moving from another language, Python Without Fear will quickly make you productive! Brian Overland’s unique approach to Python includes:

• Taking you by the hand while teaching topics from the very basics to intermediate and advanced features of Python
• Teaching by examples that are explained line by line
• Heavy emphasis on examples that are fun and useful, including games, graphics, database applications, file storage, puzzles, and more!
• How to think “Pythonically” and avoid common “gotchas”

Register your product at informit.com/register for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Meet the Python
Chapter 2 A Python Safari: Numbers
Chapter 3 Your First Programs
Chapter 4 Decisions and Looping
Chapter 5 Python Lists
Chapter 6 List Comprehension and Enumeration
Chapter 7 Python Strings
Chapter 8 Single-Character Ops
Chapter 9 Advanced Function Techniques
Chapter 10 Local and Global Variables
Chapter 11 File Ops
Chapter 12 Dictionaries and Sets
Chapter 13 Matrixes: 2-D Lists
Chapter 14 Winning at Tic-Tac-Toe
Chapter 15 Classes and Objects I
Chapter 16 Classes and Objects II
Chapter 17 Conway’s Game of Life
Chapter 18 Advanced Pythonic Techniques