If you want to write efficient, high-quality code that's easily integrated with other languages and tools, this hands-on book will help you be productive with Python quickly. Learning Python, Fifth Edition, is an easy-to-follow, self-paced tutorial based on author and Python expert Mark Lutz's popular training course. You'll find lots of annotated examples and illustrations to help you get started with Python 2.7 and 3.3. Each chapter contains a standalone lesson on a key component of the language. Learn about Python's major built-in object types such as numbers, lists, and dictionaries Create and process objects using Python statements, and learn Python's general syntax model Structure and reuse code with Python's basic procedural tool Learn about Python modules: packages of statements, functions, and other tools organized into larger components Discover Python's object-oriented programming tool for structuring code Learn about the exception-handling model and development tools for writing larger programs Explore advanced Python tools, including decorators, descriptors, metaclasses, and Unicode processing