Tiny Python Projects: 21 small fun projects for Python beginners designed to build programming skill, teach new algorithms and techniques, and introduce software testing

”Tiny Python Projects is a gentle and amusing introduction to Python that will firm up key programming concepts while also making you giggle.”—Amanda Debler, Schaeffler

Key Features
Learn new programming concepts through 21-bitesize programs
Build an insult generator, a Tic-Tac-Toe AI, a talk-like-a-pirate program, and more
Discover testing techniques that will make you a better programmer
Code-along with free accompanying videos on YouTube

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About The Book
The 21 fun-but-powerful activities in Tiny Python Projects teach Python fundamentals through puzzles and games. You’ll be engaged and entertained with every exercise, as you learn about text manipulation, basic algorithms, and lists and dictionaries, and other foundational programming skills. Gain confidence and experience while you create each satisfying project.

Instead of going quickly through a wide range of concepts, this book concentrates on the most useful skills, like text manipulation, data structures, collections, and program logic with projects that include a password creator, a word rhymer, and a Shakespearean insult generator. Author Ken Youens-Clark also teaches you good programming practice, including writing tests for your code as you go.

What You Will Learn
Write command-line Python programs
Manipulate Python data structures
Use and control randomness
Write and run tests for programs and functions
Download testing suites for each project

This Book Is Written For
For readers familiar with the basics of Python programming.

About The Author
Ken Youens-Clark is a Senior Scientific Programmer at the University of Arizona. He has an MS in Biosystems Engineering and has been programming for over 20 years.

Table of Contents

1 How to write and test a Python program
2 The crow’s nest: Working with strings
3 Going on a picnic: Working with lists
4 Jump the Five: Working with dictionaries
5 Howler: Working with files and STDOUT
6 Words count: Reading files and STDIN, iterating lists, formatting strings
7 Gashlycrumb: Looking items up in a dictionary
8 Apples and Bananas: Find and replace
9 Dial-a-Curse: Generating random insults from lists of words
10 Telephone: Randomly mutating strings
11 Bottles of Beer Song: Writing and testing functions
12 Ransom: Randomly capitalizing text
13 Twelve Days of Christmas: Algorithm design
14 Rhymer: Using regular expressions to create rhyming words
15 The Kentucky Friar: More regular expressions
16 The Scrambler: Randomly reordering the middles of words
17 Mad Libs: Using regular expressions
18 Gematria: Numeric encoding of text using ASCII values
19 Workout of the Day: Parsing CSV files, creating text table output
20 Password strength: Generating a secure and memorable password
21 Tic-Tac-Toe: Exploring state
22 Tic-Tac-Toe redux: An interactive version with type hints

Ken Youens-Clark works at the University of Arizona as a senior scientific programmer. He has an MS in biosystems engineering, and has been programming for over 20 years.