The Python programming language reconciles many apparent contradictions: elegant yet pragmatic, simple yet powerful, it’s very high-level yet doesn’t get in your way when you need to fiddle with bits and bytes, and it’s suitable for novice programmers and great for experts, too. This book is intended for programmers with some previous exposure to Python, as well as experienced programmers coming to Python for the first time from other languages. It provides a quick reference to Python itself, the most commonly used parts of its vast standard library, and a few of the most popular and useful third-party modules and packages. The Python ecosystem has grown so much in richness, scope, and complexity that a single volume can no longer reasonably hope to be encyclopedic. Still, the book covers a wide range of application areas, including web and network programming, XML handling, database interactions, and high-speed numeric computing. It also explores Python’s cross-platform capabilities and the basics of extending Python and embedding it in other applications.