CONTENTS
iii
3 The Elo Rating for Python 22
3.1 How to Use This Book . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2 The Ideal Code Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3 How to Exploit the Power of Habits? . . . 26
3.4 How to Test and Train Your Skills? . . . . 27
3.5 What Can This Book Do For You? . . . . 31
4 A Quick Overview of the Python Language 36
4.1 Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2 Basic Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 Complex Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.4 Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.5 Functions and Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5 Fifty Code Puzzles 54
5.1 Hello World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.2 Variables and Float Division . . . . . . . . 57
5.3 Basic Arithmetic Operations . . . . . . . . 59
5.4 Comments and Strings . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.5 Index and Concatenate Strings . . . . . . 64
5.6 List Indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.7 Slicing in Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.8 Integer Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.9 String Manipulation Operators . . . . . . 74
5.10 Implicit String Concatenation . . . . . . . 76
5.11 Sum and Range Functions . . . . . . . . . 78
5.12 Append Function for Lists . . . . . . . . . 80
5.13 Overshoot Slicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
