Day 1

Contents:

• Idiomatic Python
  • Some basic data types
  • List comprehensions
  • Building your own types
  • Iterators
  • Generators
  • assert
  • Conclusions
• Structuring, Testing, and Maintaining Python Programs
  • Programming for reusability
  • Modules and scripts
  • Packages
  • A short digression: naming and formatting
  • Another short digression: docstrings
  • Sharing data between code
  • Scoping: a digression
  • Back to sharing data
  • How modules are loaded (and when code is executed)
  • PYTHONPATH, and finding packages & modules during development
  • setup.py and distutils: the old fashioned way of installing Python packages
  • setup.py, eggs, and easy_install: the new fangled way of installing Python packages
• Testing Your Software
  • An introduction to testing concepts
  • The doctest module
  • Unit tests with unittest
  • Testing with nose
  • Code coverage analysis
  • Adding tests to an existing project
  • Concluding thoughts on automated testing
• An Extended Introduction to the nose Unit Testing Framework
  • What are unit tests?
  • Why use a framework? (and why nose?)
  • A few simple examples
  • A somewhat more complete guide to test discovery and execution
  • The nose command line
  • Running doctests in nose
  • The ‘attrib’ plug-in – selectively running subsets of tests
  • Running nose programmatically
  • Writing plug-ins – a simple guide
  • nose caveats – let the buyer beware, occasionally
  • Credits