What this book covers
This book is loosely divided into four major parts. In the first four chapters, we will dive
into the formal principles of object-oriented programming and how Python leverages them.
In Chapter 5, When to Use Object-Oriented Programming, through Chapter 8, Strings and
Serialization, we will cover some of Python’s idiosyncratic applications of these principles by
learning how they are applied to a variety of Python’s built-in functions. Chapter 9, The
Iterator Pattern, through Chapter 11, Python Design Patterns II, cover design patterns, and
the final two chapters discuss two bonus topics related to Python programming that may
be of interest.
To get the most out of this book
All the examples in this book rely on the Python 3 interpreter. Make sure you are not using
Python 2.7 or earlier. At the time of writing, Python 3.7 was the latest release of Python.
Many examples will work on earlier revisions of Python 3, but you’ll likely experience a lot
of frustration if you’re using anything older than 3.5.
All of the examples should run on any operating system supported by Python. If this is not
the case, please report it as a bug.
Some of the examples need a working internet connection. You’ll probably want to have
one of these for extracurricular research and debugging anyway!
In addition, some of the examples in this book rely on third-party libraries that do not ship
with Python. They are introduced within the book at the time they are used, so you do not
need to install them in advance.
