PCPP1™ – Certified Professional in Python Programming 1 Certification Prep

Section 1: Advanced Object-Oriented Programming

PCPP-32-101 1.1 – Understand and explain the basic terms and programming concepts used in the OOP paradigm

• essential terminology: class, instance, object, attribute, method, type, instance and class variables, superclasses and subclasses
• reflexion: isinstance(), issubclass()
• the __init__() method
• creating classes, methods, and class and instance variables; calling methods; accessing class and instance variables

PCPP-32-101 1.2 – Perform Python core syntax operations

• Python core syntax expressions – magic methods: comparison methods (e.g. __eq__(self, other)), numeric methods (e.g. __abs__(self)), type conversion methods (e.g. __init__(self)), object intro- and retrospection (e.g. __str__(self), __instancecheck__(self, object)), object attribute access (e.g. __getattr__(self, attribute)), accessing containers (e.g. __getitem__(self, key))
• operating with special methods
• extending class implementations to support additional core syntax operations

PCPP-32-101 1.3 Understand and use the concepts of inheritance, polymorphism, and composition.

• class hierarchies
• single vs. multiple inheritance
• Method Resolution Order (MRO)
• duck typing
• inheritance vs. composition
• modelling real-life problems using the “is a” and “has a” relations

PCPP-32-101 1.4 Understand the concept of extended function argument syntax and demonstrate proficiency in using decorators

• special identifiers: *args, **kwargs
• forwarding arguments to other functions
• function parameter handling
• closures
• function and class decorators
• decorating functions with classes
• creating decorators and operating with them: implementing decorator patterns, decorator arguments, wrappers
• decorator stacking
• syntactic sugar
• special methods: __call__, __init__

PCPP-32-101 1.5 Design, build, and use Python static and class methods.

• implementing class and static methods
• class vs. static methods
• the cls parameter
• the @classmethod and @staticmethod decorators
• class methods: accessing and modifying the state/methods of a class, creating objects

PCPP-32-101 1.6 Understand and use Python abstract classes and methods.

• abstract classes and abstract methods: defining, creating, and implementing abstract classes and abstract methods
• overriding abstract methods
• implementing a multiple inheritance from abstract classes
• delivering multiple child classes

PCPP-32-101 1.7 Understand and use the concept of attribute encapsulation.

• definition, meaning, usage
• operating with the getter, setter, and deleter methods

PCPP-32-101 1.8 Understand and apply the concept of subclassing built-in classes

• inheriting properties from built-in classes
• using the concept of subclassing the built-ins to extend class features and modify class methods and attributes

PCPP-32-101 1.9 Demonstrate proficiency in the advanced techniques for creating and serving exceptions

• exceptions as objects, named attributes of exception objects, basic terms and concepts
• chained exceptions, the __context__ and __cause__ attributes, implicitly and explicitly chained exceptions\
• analyzing exception traceback objects, the __traceback__ attribute
• operating with different kinds of exceptions

PCPP-32-101 1.10 Demonstrate proficiency in performing shallow and deep copy operations.

• shallow and deep copies of objects
• object: label vs. identity vs. value
• the id() function and the is operand
• operating with the copy() and deepcopy() methods

PCPP-32-101 1.11 Understand and perform (de)serialization of Python objects.

• object persistence, serialization and deserialization: meaning, purpose, usage
• serializing objects as a single byte stream: the pickle module, pickling various data types
• the dumps() and loads functions
• serializing objects by implementing a serialization dictionary: the shelve module, file modes, creating chelve objects

PCPP-32-101 1.12 Understand and explain the concept of metaprogramming.

• metaclasses: meaning, purpose, usage
• the type metaclass and the type() function
• special attributes: __name__, __class__, __bases__, __dict__
• operating with metaclasses, class variables, and class methods

Section 2: Coding Conventions, Best Practices, and Standarization

PCPP-32-101 2.1 – Understand and explain the concept of Python Enhancement Proposals and Python philosophy.

• the PEP concept and selected PEPs: PEP 1, PEP 8, PEP 20, PEP 257
• PEP 1: different types of PEPs, formats, purpose, guidelines
• PEP 20: Python philosophy, its guiding principles, and design; the import this instruction and PEP 20 aphorisms

PCPP-32-101 2.2 – Employ the PEP 8 guidelines, coding conventions, and best practices.

• PEP 8 compliant checkers
• recommendations for code layout: indentation, continuation lines, maximum line length, line breaks, blank lines (vertical whitespaces)
• default encodings
• module imports
• recommendations for string quotes, whitespace, and trailing commas: single-quoted vs. double-quoted strings, whitespace in expressions and statements, whitespace and trailing commas
• recommendations for using comments: block comments, inline comments
• documentation strings
• naming conventions: naming styles, recommendations
• programming recommendations

PCPP-32-101 2.3 – Employ the PEP 257 guidelines, conventions, and best practices

• docstrings: rationale, usage
• comments vs. docstrings
• PEP 484 and type hints
• creating, using, and accessing docstrings
• one-line vs. multi-line docstrings
• documentation standards, linters, fixers

Section 3: GUI Programming

PCPP-32-101 3.1 – Understand and explain the basic concepts and terminology related to GUI programming

• GUI: meaning, rationale, basic terms and definitions
• visual programming: examples, basic features
• widgets/controls – basic terms: windows, title and title bars, buttons, icons, labels, etc.
• classical vs. event-driven programming
• events – basic terms
• widget toolkits/GUI toolkits

PCPP-32-101 3.2 – Use GUI toolkits, basic blocks, and conventions to design and build simple GUI applications

• importing tkinter components
• creating an application’s main window: the Tk(), mainloop(), and title methods
• adding widgets to the window: buttons, labels, frames, the place() method, widget constructors, location, screen coordinates, size, etc.
• launching the event controller: event handlers, defining and using callbacks, the destroy() method, dialog boxes
• shaping the main window and interacting with the user
• checking the validity of user input and handling errors
• working with Canvas and its methods
• using the Entry, Radiobutton, and Button widgets
• managing widgets with the grid and place managers
• binding events using the bind() method

PCPP-32-101 3.3 – Demonstrate proficiency in using widgets and handling events

• settling widgets in the window’s interior, geometry managers
• coloring widgets, color modes: RGB, HEX
• event handling: writing event handlers and assigning them to widgets
• event-driven programming: implementing interfaces using events and callbacks
• widget properties and methods
• variables: observable variables and adding observers to variables
• using selected clickable and non-clickable widgets
• identifying and servicing GUI events

Section 4: Network Programming

PCPP-32-101 4.1 – Understand and explain the basic concepts of network programming

• REST
• network sockets
• Domains, addresses, ports, protocols, and services
• Network communication: connection-oriented vs. connectionless communication, clients and servers

PCPP-32-101 4.2 – Demonstrate proficiency in working with sockets in Python.

• the socket module: importing and creating sockets
• connecting sockets to HTTP servers, closing connections with servers
• sending requests to servers, the send() method
• receiving responses from servers, the recv() method
• exception handling mechanisms and exception types

PCPP-32-101 4.3 – Employ data transfer mechanisms for network communication

• JSON: syntax, structure, data types (numbers, strings, Boolean values, null), compound data (arrays and objects), sample JSON documents and their anatomies
• the json module: serialization and deserialization, serializing Python data/deserializing JSON (the dumps() and loads methods), serializng and deserializing Python objects
• XML: syntax, structure, sample xml documents and their anatomies, DTD, XML as a tree
• processing xml files

PCPP-32-101 4.4 – Design, develop, and improve a simple REST client

• the request module
• designing, building, and using testing environments
• HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
• CRUD
• adding and updating data
• fetching and removing data from servers
• analyzing the server’s response
• response status codes

Section 5: File Processing and Communicating with a Program’s Environment

PCPP-32-101 5.1 – Demonstrate proficiency in database programming in Python

• the sqlite module
• creating and closing database connection using the connect and close methods
• creating tables
• inserting, reading, updating, and deleting data
• transaction demarcation
• cursor methods: execute, executemany, fetchone, fetchall
• creating basic SQL statements (SELECT, INSERT INTO, UPDATE, DELETE, etc.)

PCPP-32-101 5.2 – Demonstrate proficiency in processing different file formats in Python

• parsing XML documents
• searching data in XML documents using the find and findall methods
• building XML documents using the Element class and the SubElement function
• reading and writing CSV data using functions and classes: reader, writer, DictReader, DictWriter
• logging events in applications
• working with different levels of logging
• using LogRecord attributes to create log formats
• creating custom handlers and formatters
• parsing and creating configuration files using the ConfigParser object
• interpolating values in .ini files