Terminology

By Ryan Wiles

Description

The following is a list of various terms that are either used in Python or in these tutorials along with a brief description. While it’s not necessary to memorize them, quickly familiarizing yourself with them would be useful before we delve deeper into the world of Python.

Terms and Definitions

• Built Distribution - A Built Distribution is a Python package format that contains both files and metadata and only needs to be found on the PYTHONPATH to be installed.

• Calls - “A call calls a callable object (e.g., a function) with a possibly empty series of arguments” https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html?highlight=subscriptions#calls

• Distribution - A distribution is a curated collection of software packages that are generally tested to ensure that all of the different packages work together correctly.

• Expressions - https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html?highlight=subscriptions#grammar-token-subscription

• Identifiers - (letter|“”) (letter | digit | “”)*

• JSON - JavaScript Object Notation

• Literals - A string, byte, or numeric literal

• Operators - https://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/ref/operators.html

• Package Manager - Package Managers are tools designed to manage the installation, updating, and removal of software packages and ensure that all of their dependencies are satisfied so that they will run as expected.

• Pickle

  1. Python object serialization, converting a Python object structure to a binary representation.

  2. The name of a the Python Module that implements binary protocols for the serialization and de-serialization of Python objects. https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html

• Pickling - “‘Pickling’ is the process whereby a Python object hierarchy is converted into a byte stream, and ‘unpickling’ is the inverse operation” https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html

• PyPA - The Python Packaging Authority is a an important working group that maintains many important Python packaging projects including setuptools, pip, Conda, virtualenv, and venv.

• PyPi - The Python Package Index is the default online repository for pip.

• PYTHONPATH - A Python Environment Variable that contains the set of directory paths searched by Python when resolving the import of modules and packages.

• REPL - An acronym that stands for the Record-Eval-Print-Loop. REPL is a frequently used mechanism to provide an interactive shell for interrupted programming languages.

• Statement

  1. Simple Statement - “comprised within a single logical line. Several simple statements may occur on a single line separated by semicolons.” https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html

  2. Compound Statement - “contain (groups of) other statements; they affect or control the execution of those other statements in some way. In general, compound statements span multiple lines, although in simple incarnations a whole compound statement may be contained in one line.” https://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html

• Unpickle - De-serializing or instantiating a Python object structure from a binary representation.

References

• Python Glossary
• Python Command Line

© 2018 Ryan Wiles