About this course:

Geared for experienced users, Mastering Python Programming is an introductory and beyond-level practical, hands-on Python training course that leads the student from the basics of writing and running Python scripts to more advanced features such as file operations, regular expressions, working with binary data, and using the extensive functionality of Python modules. Extra emphasis is placed on features unique to Python, such as tuples, array slices, and output formatting.

This comprehensive, practical course provides an in-depth exploration of working with the programming language, not an academic overview of syntax and grammar.  Students will immediately be able to use Python to complete tasks in the real world.

Course Objective:

Throughout the course, students will be led through a series of progressively advanced topics, where each topic consists of lecture, group discussion, comprehensive hands-on lab exercises, and lab review. This course is “skills-centric”, designed to train attendees in essential Python and web development skills, coupling the most current, effective techniques with best practices.

Students will explore:

• Running Python Scripts
• Getting Started
• Flow Control
• Sequence Data
• Defining Functions
• Working with Files
• Dictionaries and Sets
• Errors and Exception Handling
• Using Modules
• Regular Expressions
• Highlights of the Standard Library
• Introduction to Python Classes
• Real-life programming
• Special data types
• Network services
• Dates and times

Working within in an engaging, hands-on learning environment, guided by our expert Python practitioner, students will learn to:

• Create working Python scripts following best practices
• Use python data types appropriately
• Read and write files with both text and binary data
• Search and replace text with regular expressions
• Get familiar with the standard library and its work-saving modules
• Use lesser-known but powerful Python data types
• Create "real-world", professional Python applications
• Work with dates, times, and calendars 
• Know when to use collections such as lists, dictionaries, and sets
• Understand Pythonic features such as comprehensions and iterators
• Write robust code using exception handling

Audience:

This course is appropriate for advanced users, system administrators, and website administrators who want to use Python to support their server installations, as well as anyone else who wants to automate or simplify common tasks with the use of Python scripts.

Prerequisite:

Students should already have a working, user-level knowledge of Unix/Linux, Mac, or Windows. While not required, basic skills with at least one other programming language will be helpful.