Best Book of Python | PYTHON CRASH COURSE by ERIC MATTHES (FREE)

1.Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming (2nd Edition)

               The book starts out with a walkthrough of the basic Python elements and data structures, working through variables, strings, numbers, lists, and tuples, outlining how you work with each of them.

Next, if statements and logical tests are covered, followed by a dive into dictionaries.

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After that, the book covers user input, while loops, functions, classes, and file handling, as well as code testing and debugging.

That’s just the first half of the book! In the second half, you work on three major projects, creating some clever, fun applications.

The first project is an Alien Invasion game, essentially Space Invaders, developed using the pygame package. You design a ship (using classes), then program how to pilot it and make it fire bullets. Then, you design several classes of aliens, make the alien fleet move, and make it possible to shoot them down. Finally, you add a scoreboard and a list of high scores to complete the game.

After that, the next project covers data visualization with matplotlib, random walks, rolling dice, and a little bit of statistical analysis, creating graphs and charts with the pygal package. You learn how to download data in a variety of formats, import it into Python, and visualize the results, as well as how to interact with web APIs, retrieving and visualizing data from GitHub and HackerNews.

The third project walks you through the creation of a complete web application using Django to set up a Learning Log to track what users have been studying. It covers how to install Django, set up a project, design your models, create an admin interface, set up user accounts, manage access controls on a per-user basis, style your entire app with Bootstrap, and then finally deploy it to Heroku.

This book is well written and nicely organized. It presents a large number of useful exercises as well as three challenging and entertaining projects that make up the second half of the book. (Reviewed by David Schlesinger.)