Automate The Boring Stuff With Python

Learn how to code while you write programs that effortlessly perform useful feats of automation! The second edition of this international fan favorite includes a brand-new chapter on input validation, Gmail and Google Sheets automations, tips for updating CSV files, and more. If you've ever spent hours renaming files or updating spreadsheet cells, you know how tedious tasks like these can be. But what if you could have your computer do them for you? Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd Edition teaches even the technically uninclined how to write programs that do in minutes what would take hours to do by hand—no prior coding experience required! This new, fully revised edition of Al Sweigart’s bestselling Pythonic classic, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, covers all the basics of Python 3 while exploring its rich library of modules for performing specific tasks, like scraping data off the Web, filling out forms, renaming files, organizing folders, sending email responses, and merging, splitting, or encrypting PDFs. There’s also a brand-new chapter on input validation, tutorials on automating Gmail and Google Sheets, tips on automatically updating CSV files, and other recent feats of automations that improve your efficiency. Detailed, step-by-step instructions walk you through each program, allowing you to create useful tools as you build out your programming skills, and updated practice projects at the end of each chapter challenge you to improve those programs and use your newfound skills to automate similar tasks. Boring tasks no longer have to take to get through—and neither does learning Python!

BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN NOVICE AND PROFESSIONAL You've completed a basic Python programming tutorial or finished Al Sweigart's bestseller, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. What's the next step toward becoming a capable, confident software developer? Welcome to Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python. More than a mere collection of advanced syntax and masterful tips for writing clean code, you'll learn how to advance your Python programming skills by using the command line and other professional tools like code formatters, type checkers, linters, and version control. Sweigart takes you through best practices for setting up your development environment, naming variables, and improving readability, then tackles documentation, organization and performance measurement, as well as object-oriented design and the Big-O algorithm analysis commonly used in coding interviews. The skills you learn will boost your ability to program--not just in Python but in any language. You'll learn: Coding style, and how to use Python's Black auto-formatting tool for cleaner code Common sources of bugs, and how to detect them with static analyzers How to structure the files in your code projects with the Cookiecutter template tool Functional programming techniques like lambda and higher-order functions How to profile the speed of your code with Python's built-in timeit and cProfile modules The computer science behind Big-O algorithm analysis How to make your comments and docstrings informative, and how often to write them How to create classes in object-oriented programming, and why they're used to organize code Toward the end of the book you'll read a detailed source-code breakdown of two classic command-line games, the Tower of Hanoi (a logic puzzle) and Four-in-a-Row (a two-player tile-dropping game), and a breakdown of how their code follows the book's best practices. You'll test your skills by implementing the program yourself. Of course, no single book can make you a professional software developer. But Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python will get you further down that path and make you a better programmer, as you learn to write readable code that's easy to debug and perfectly Pythonic Requirements: Covers Python 3.6 and higher

Best-selling author Al Sweigart shows you how to easily build over 80 fun programs with minimal code and maximum creativity. If you’ve mastered basic Python syntax and you’re ready to start writing programs, you’ll find The Big Book of Small Python Projects both enlightening and fun. This collection of 81 Python projects will have you making digital art, games, animations, counting pro- grams, and more right away. Once you see how the code works, you’ll practice re-creating the programs and experiment by adding your own custom touches. These simple, text-based programs are 256 lines of code or less. And whether it’s a vintage screensaver, a snail-racing game, a clickbait headline generator, or animated strands of DNA, each project is designed to be self-contained so you can easily share it online. You’ll create: • Hangman, Blackjack, and other games to play against your friends or the computer • Simulations of a forest fire, a million dice rolls, and a Japanese abacus • Animations like a virtual fish tank, a rotating cube, and a bouncing DVD logo screensaver • A first-person 3D maze game • Encryption programs that use ciphers like ROT13 and Vigenère to conceal text If you’re tired of standard step-by-step tutorials, you’ll love the learn-by-doing approach of The Big Book of Small Python Projects. It’s proof that good things come in small programs!

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python will teach you how to make computer games using the popular Python programming language—even if you’ve never programmed before! Begin by building classic games like Hangman, Guess the Number, and Tic-Tac-Toe, and then work your way up to more advanced games, like a text-based treasure hunting game and an animated collision-dodging game with sound effects. Along the way, you’ll learn key programming and math concepts that will help you take your game programming to the next level. Learn how to: –Combine loops, variables, and flow control statements into real working programs –Choose the right data structures for the job, such as lists, dictionaries, and tuples –Add graphics and animation to your games with the pygame module –Handle keyboard and mouse input –Program simple artificial intelligence so you can play against the computer –Use cryptography to convert text messages into secret code –Debug your programs and find common errors As you work through each game, you’ll build a solid foundation in Python and an understanding of computer science fundamentals. What new game will you create with the power of Python? The projects in this book are compatible with Python 3.

The bestselling introduction to practical Python programming for total beginners is now in its 3rd edition, revised to include the latest Python features, even better explanations, and new chapters about databases and sound files. If you’ve ever spent hours renaming files or updating hundreds of spreadsheet cells, you know how tedious tasks like these can be. But what if you could have your computer do them for you? In this fully revised edition of the best-selling classic Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, you’ll learn how to use Python to write programs that do in minutes what would take you hours to do by hand—no prior programming experience required. You'll learn the basics of coding in Python and explore the language’s’s rich library of modules for performing specific tasks, like scraping data from websites, searching for text across multiple files, and merging, watermarking, or encrypting PDFs. The third edition includes: Expanded coverage of developer techniques, like creating command line programs Updated examples and new projects Additional chapters about working with SQLite databases, speech-recognition technology, video and audio editing, and text-to-speech capabilities Simplified explanations (based on reader feedback) of beginner programming concepts, like loops and conditionals Even if you've never written a line of code, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 3rd Edition will teach you how to make your computer take on tedious tasks and do all your grunt work—the way it should be!

You Will Learn Python 3! Zed Shaw has perfected the world’s best system for learning Python 3. Follow it and you will succeed—just like the millions of beginners Zed has taught to date! You bring the discipline, commitment, and persistence; the author supplies everything else. In Learn Python 3 the Hard Way, you’ll learn Python by working through 52 brilliantly crafted exercises. Read them. Type their code precisely. (No copying and pasting!) Fix your mistakes. Watch the programs run. As you do, you’ll learn how a computer works; what good programs look like; and how to read, write, and think about code. Zed then teaches you even more in 5+ hours of video where he shows you how to break, fix, and debug your code—live, as he’s doing the exercises. Install a complete Python environment Organize and write code Fix and break code Basic mathematics Variables Strings and text Interact with users Work with files Looping and logic Data structures using lists and dictionaries Program design Object-oriented programming Inheritance and composition Modules, classes, and objects Python packaging Automated testing Basic game development Basic web development It’ll be hard at first. But soon, you’ll just get it—and that will feel great! This course will reward you for every minute you put into it. Soon, you’ll know one of the world’s most powerful, popular programming languages. You’ll be a Python programmer. This Book Is Perfect For Total beginners with zero programming experience Junior developers who know one or two languages Returning professionals who haven’t written code in years Seasoned professionals looking for a fast, simple, crash course in Python 3

Learn how to program in Python while making and breaking ciphers—algorithms used to create and send secret messages! After a crash course in Python programming basics, you’ll learn to make, test, and hack programs that encrypt text with classical ciphers like the transposition cipher and Vigenère cipher. You’ll begin with simple programs for the reverse and Caesar ciphers and then work your way up to public key cryptography, the type of encryption used to secure today’s online transactions, including digital signatures, email, and Bitcoin. Each program includes the full code and a line-by-line explanation of how things work. By the end of the book, you’ll have learned how to code in Python and you’ll have the clever programs to prove it! You’ll also learn how to: - Combine loops, variables, and flow control statements into real working programs - Use dictionary files to instantly detect whether decrypted messages are valid English or gibberish - Create test programs to make sure that your code encrypts and decrypts correctly - Code (and hack!) a working example of the affine cipher, which uses modular arithmetic to encrypt a message - Break ciphers with techniques such as brute-force and frequency analysis There’s no better way to learn to code than to play with real programs. Cracking Codes with Python makes the learning fun!

Want to learn the Python language without slogging your way through how-to manuals? With Head First Python, you’ll quickly grasp Python’s fundamentals, working with the built-in data structures and functions. Then you’ll move on to building your very own webapp, exploring database management, exception handling, and data wrangling. If you’re intrigued by what you can do with context managers, decorators, comprehensions, and generators, it’s all here. This second edition is a complete learning experience that will help you become a bonafide Python programmer in no time. Why does this book look so different? Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Pythonuses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works.