Al Sweigart is a professional software developer who teaches programming to kids and adults. Sweigart has written several bestselling programming books for beginners, including Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, Coding with Minecraft, and Cracking Codes with Python (all from No Starch Press).

• IntroductionPart I: Getting Started1.     Dealing with Errors and Asking for Help2.     Environmental Setup3.     Formatting with the Black Module Part II: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques4.     Choosing Useful Names5.     Finding Code Smells6.     Writing Pythonic Code7.     Programming Jargon8.     Common Python Gotchas9.     Esoteric Python Oddities10.   Crafting Effective Functions11.   Comments and Type Hints12.   Version Control with Git13.   Profiling Code Part III: Practice Problems14.   Tower of Hanoi15.   Connect Four Part IV: Readable Object-Oriented Programming16.   Classes and Objects17.   Inheritance18.   Pythonic Object-Oriented Programming Index

"A great new book . . . Sweigart focuses on three major subjects: common difficulties in getting started (seeking help, setting up a work environment); best practices, tools, and techniques; and using object-oriented Python. The second section is the largest in the book . . . but each section can be read on its own. The book is all the more useful for collecting together between one pair of covers material that you would typically dig up from multiple resources." —Serdar Yegulalp, InfoWorld"My early Python programs work but could be improved massively with what Al writes about . . . a small goldmine of knowledge that beginners, intermediates and probably even advanced programmers will benefit from." —GeekTechStuff