Book excerpt: Based on the latest version of the language, this book offers a self-contained, concise and coherent introduction to programming with Python. The book’s primary focus is on realistic case study applications of Python. Each practical example is accompanied by a brief explanation of the problem-terminology and concepts, followed by necessary program development in Python using its constructs, and simulated testing. Given the open and participatory nature of development, Python has a variety of incorporated data structures, which has made it difficult to present it in a coherent manner. Further, some advanced concepts (super, yield, generator, decorator, etc.) are not easy to explain. The book specially addresses these challenges; starting with a minimal subset of the core, it offers users a step-by-step guide to achieving proficiency.