Python Basics for Experts

How hard could Python really be? How much programming do you even need to know to use Python?

Python is a programming language which allows us to focus on human intentionality, on expressing what we are trying to accomplish with our code without burying the reader in the mechanics of how we go about accomplishing it. Every major feature in Python has its place in terms of improving readability, ergonomics, and maintainability, despite being presented as merely just another set of features in a programming language.

In this three part series, we will look at the major features in Python through a set of example problems, and investigate how these features contribute to expressing intent and creating readable, maintainable high-level code. We will discuss the motivations behind various features, syntax, and decisions, their relationship to the various metaphors that are commonly present in the code that we write, the rote mechanics that support their use, and how these come together to bring a consistent, coherent, intuitive meaning to our work.