Mastering Python Programming

Part 1: An overview of Python

1. What is python?
2. Python Timeline
3. Advantages/Disadvantages of Python
4. Getting help with pydoc

Part 2: The Python Environment

1. Starting Python
2. Using the interpreter
3. Running a Python script
4. Python scripts on Unix/Windows
5. Editors and IDEs

Part 3: Getting Started

1. Using variables
2. Builtin functions
3. Strings
4. Numbers
5. Converting among types
6. Writing to the screen
7. Command line parameters

Part 4: Flow Control

1. About flow control
2. White space
3. Conditional expressions
4. Relational and Boolean operators
5. While loops
6. Alternate loop exits

Part 5: Array types

1. About array types (AKA sequences)
2. Lists and list methods
3. Tuples
4. Indexing and slicing
5. Iterating through a sequence
6. Nested sequences
7. Sequence functions, keywords, and operators
8. List comprehensions
9. Generator Expressions

Part 6: Working with files

1. File overview
2. Opening a text file
3. Reading a text file
4. Writing to a text file
5. Reading and writing raw (binary) data
6. Converting binary data with struct

Part 7: Dictionaries and Sets

1. About dictionaries
2. Creating dictionaries
3. Iterating through a dictionary
4. About sets
5. Creating sets
6. Working with sets

Part 8: Functions

1. Defining functions
2. Parameters 
3. Global and local scope
4. Nested functions
5. Returning values

Part 9: Sorting

1. The sorted() function
2. Alternate keys
3. Lambda functions
4. Sorting collections
5. Using operator.itemgetter()
6. Reverse sorting

Part 10: Errors and Exception Handling

1. Syntax errors
2. Exceptions
3. Using try/catch/else/finally
4. Handling multiple exceptions
5. Ignoring exceptions

Part 11:  Modules and Packages

1. The import statement
2. Module search path
3. Creating Modules
4. Using packages
5. Function and Module aliases

Part 12: Classes

1. About o-o programming
2. Defining classes
3. Constructors
4. Methods
5. Instance data
6. Properties
7. Class methods and data

Part 13: Regular Expressions

1. RE syntax overview
2. RE Objects
3. Searching and matching
4. Compilation flags
5. Groups and special groups
6. Replacing text
7. Splitting strings

Part 14:  The standard library

1. The sys module
2. Launching external programs
3. Math functions
4. Random numbers
5. Reading CSV data

Part 15:  Dates and times

1. Working with dates and times
2. Translating timestamps
3. Parsing dates from text
4. Formatting dates
5. Calendar data

Part 16:  Working with the file system

• Paths, directories, and filenames
• Checking for existence
• Permissions and other file attributes
• Walking directory trees
• Creating filters with fileinput
• Using shutil for file operations

Part 17:  Advanced data handling

1. Defaultdict and Counter
2. Prettyprinting data structures
3. Compressed archives (zip, gzip, tar, etc.)
4. Persistent data

Part 18:  Network programming

1. Using requests
2. Grabbing web content
3. Sending email
4. Using SSH for remote access
5. Using FTP

Part 19: Writing real-life applications

1. Reading input files a la Unix
2. Parsing command-line options
3. Detecting the current platform
4. Implementing logging

• Experienced users who want to use Python in web development projects
• System administrators and web site administrators who want to use Python to support their server installations
• Anyone else who wants to automate or simplify common tasks with the use of Python scripts.
• Basic familiarity with any programming or scripting language would be helpful, along with a working, user-level knowledge of Unix/Linux, Mac, or Windows.

• 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