Murach’s Python Programming, 2/e

Python is one of today’s most popular languages. Its simple syntax makes it relatively easy to learn, and its diverse uses…from web and game programming to data analysis and data mining to scientific computing, artificial intelligence, and more!...have created a huge demand for programmers.

So if you’re ready to add Python to your set of skills, this book is for you. It provides the fastest and easiest yet most professional way to learn Python that you can find, whether you’re a beginning programmer or have years of experience.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to learn Python.

If Python is your first programming language, it will help you master Python, of course. But it will also help you master the skills and concepts you need to program in any modern language.

If you’re an experienced programmer who wants to add Python to your resume, it will help you learn Python faster and better than you’ve ever learned a language before.

Either way, once you’ve used it for self-training, it becomes your ideal on-the-job reference.

What this book does

To make this book as effective as possible, the content is divided into 4 sections:

• Section 1 presents an 8-chapter course in Python that gets you off to a great start. This section works for both beginners and experienced programmers because it lets you set your own pace. If you’re a beginner, you’ll move slowly and do all the exercises. If you have experience, you’ll move more quickly, skimming through material you already know to focus on skills that are new to you or that you’ve never mastered. At the end, you’ll have a strong set of the base skills that you’ll use in any Python program.
• Section 2 builds on the subset in section 1 to present the additional skills that every Python programmer should master. Here, then, you’ll learn more about working with numbers and strings than what was presented in section 1. And you’ll gain new skills for working with dates and times, dictionaries, recursion, and algorithms.
• Section 3 consists of 3 chapters that show how to design and develop object-oriented programs. OOP is critical in today’s world, and if you’re new to the concepts...or if you’ve always been somewhat mystified by them...Python’s syntax combined with our presentation will make it all clear.
• The focus of section 4 is to show you how all of the skills that you’ve learned in the first 3 sections are applied to real-world programs. First, chapter 17 shows you how to use Python for database programming, a must in businesses large and small. Then, chapter 18 shows you how to use Python to develop programs with graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

Why you’ll learn faster and better with this book

Like all our books, this one has features that ease the learning curve for you, even though you won’t find them in competing books. Here are a few of those features.

• As you page through this book, you’ll see that all of the information is presented in “paired pages,” with the essential syntax, guidelines, and examples on the right page and the perspective and extra explanation on the left page. This helps you learn faster by reading less...and this is the ideal reference format when you need to refresh your memory about how to do something.
• To show you how Python works, this book presents dozens of complete programs that build from the simple to the complex. We believe that studying the code for complete programs is critical to the learning process... and yet you won’t find programs like ours, that tie all your newfound skills together, in other Python books.
• This book also presents hundreds of short examples, so it’s easy to find an example that shows what you want to do. Even better, our paired pages make it easier to find the example that you’re looking for than it is with traditional books that embed the examples in the text.
• Like all our books, this one has exercises at the end of each chapter that give you hands-on experience in practicing what you’ve learned. They also encourage you to experiment and to apply what you’ve learned in new ways…just as you’ll have to do on the job.

What software you need for this book

To develop Python programs, you just need to download and install Python. It includes an integrated development environment (IDE) called IDLE that you can use for coding, testing, and debugging your programs. Chapter 1 shows how to use IDLE, and appendixes A and B show how to install Python and IDLE on Windows and macOS systems. We also have a video showing how to set up Python and the Murach download files on your computer.

If you’re going to develop programs that use a SQLite database as shown in chapter 17, you also need to download and install DB Browser for SQLite. Appendixes A and B provide the instructions for doing that.