In my experience, when I get finished reading an introductory text, I want to then create something, but I don't know how! I've got the learning, but not the glue to get from point A to point B. I think it's important to not only teach you the basics, but also cover intermediate material.

Let me spend a few moments explaining what each part has to offer

In part one, we will cover the following:

- Python types (strings, lists, dicts, etc)

- Conditional statements

- Loops

- List and dictionary comprehensions

- Exception Handling

- File I/O

- Functions and Classes

Part two will talk about some of Python's standard library. The standard library is what comes pre-packaged with Python. It is made up of modules that you can import to get added functionality. For example, you can import the **math** module to gain some high level math functions. I will be cherry picking the modules I use the most as a day-to-day professional and explaining how they work. The reason I think this is a good idea is that they are common, every day modules that I think you will benefit knowing about at the beginning of your Python education. This section will also cover various ways to install 3rd party modules. Finally, I will cover how to create your own modules and packages and why you'd want to do that in the first place. Here are some of the modules we will be covering:

- csv

- ConfigParser

- logging

- os

- smtplib / email

- subprocess

- sys

- thread / queues

- time / datetime

Part three will cover intermediate odds and ends. These are topics that are handy to know, but not necessarily required to be able to program in Python. The topics covered are:

- the Python debugger (pdb)

- decorators

- the lambda function

- code profiling

- a testing introduction

Part four will be made up of small tutorials that will help you to learn how to use Python in a practical way. In this way, you will learn how to create Python programs that can actually do something useful! You can take the knowledge in these tutorials to create your own scripts. Ideas for further enhancements to these mini-applications will be provided at the end of each tutorial so you will have something that you can try out on your own. Here are a few of the 3rd party packages that we'll be covering:

- pip and easy\_install

- configobj

- lxml

- requests

- virtualenv

- pylint / pychecker

- SQLAlchemy

Part five is going to cover how to take your code and give it to your friends, family and the world! You will learn the following:

- How to turn your reusable scripts into Python "eggs", "wheels" and more

- How to upload your creation to the Python Package Index (PyPI)

- How to create binary executables so you can run your application without Python

- How to create an installer for your application

What's this chapter about?