Prerequisites & Notation

Before You Begin

This chapter assumes you once knew Python reasonably well but may be rusty. If any of these items feel completely foreign (not just forgotten), review the linked material first.

Basic programming concepts: variables, loops, functions, conditionals
Self-check: Can you write a function that takes a list and returns the sum of its elements?
Command-line usage: navigating directories, running scripts
Self-check: Can you open a terminal, navigate to a directory, and run python script.py?
Basic Python syntax: indentation, imports, print statements
Self-check: Can you write import math; print(math.sqrt(2)) without looking it up?

Notation for This Chapter

Symbols and conventions introduced in this chapter. Python-specific notation is used throughout the book.

Symbol	Meaning	Introduced
$`venv`$	Python virtual environment (isolated package namespace)	s01
$`conda`$	Cross-platform package and environment manager for scientific Python	s01
$`__init__`, `__repr__`, etc.$	Dunder (double-underscore) methods — Python's object protocol hooks	s02
$O(1)$ , $O(n)$ , $O(n \log n)$	Time complexity of operations on data structures	s03
$`yield`$	Python keyword that turns a function into a generator (lazy iterator)	s04
$`f"{x:.2f}"`$	f-string with format spec — Python's preferred string interpolation	s05

Back to chapter overview Setting Up the Environment