Introducing Python: Modern Computing in Simple Packages

Easy to understand and fun to read, Introducing Python is ideal for beginning programmers as well as those new to the language. Author Bill Lubanovic takes you from the basics to more involved and varied topics, mixing tutorials with cookbook-style code recipes to explain concepts in Python 3. End-of-chapter exercises help you practice what you’ve learned.

You’ll gain a strong foundation in the language, including best practices for testing, debugging, code reuse, and other development tips. This book also shows you how to use Python for applications in business, science, and the arts, using various Python tools and open source packages.

• Learn simple data types, and basic math and text operations
• Use data-wrangling techniques with Python’s built-in data structures
• Explore Python code structure, including the use of functions
• Write large programs in Python, with modules and packages
• Dive into objects, classes, and other object-oriented features
• Examine storage from flat files to relational databases and NoSQL
• Use Python to build web clients, servers, APIs, and services
• Manage system tasks such as programs, processes, and threads
• Understand the basics of concurrency and network programming

Bill Lubanovic has developed software with UNIX since 1977, GUIs since 1981, databases since 1990, and the Web since 1993.

At a startup named Intran in 1982, he developed MetaForm -- one of the first commercial GUIs (before the Mac or Windows), on one of the first graphic workstations. At Northwest Airlines in the early 1990s, he wrote a graphic yield management system that generated millions of dollars in revenue; got the company on the Internet; and wrote its first Internet marketing test. He co-founded an ISP (Tela) in 1994, and a web development company (Mad Scheme) in 1999.

Recently, he developed core services and distributed systems with a remote team for a Manhattan startup. Currently, he's integrating OpenStack services for a supercomputer company.

He enjoys life in Minnesota with his wonderful wife Mary, children Tom and Karin, and cats Inga, Chester, and Lucy.