New job, hu dis? Python crash course and using POSTMAN for web development. Today I learned: Monday 13 June, 2022

  • I start a new job soon where I'll be using python to create APIs, so I'm going to divert my learning focus away from GO for now.

  • API building features requests such as POST, PUT, GET and DELETE.

  • You use these to define 'routes'.

  • In python, 'jsonify()' seems to be some sort of method to convert a value into a json object.

  • Also in python, instead of using 'else' in conditional statements, it used 'elif'.

  • There is a concept called 'resources' in API building.

    • From the Flask tutorial, which is creating a todo app, it creates two resources;

      • A todo list

      • A single todo item.

  • There is a variable named 'self' that is some times passes in as an argument to python methods.

  • 'def' is a keyword. I'm not sure if it used to create a method, or to define a new API route.

  • POSTMAN is a desktop browser that is used to test API's.

  • Django is a framework for python, and within it is a library called GEODJANGO. This is used for mapping and GIS purposes.

  • EOL is a error message, meaning 'end of line'.

    • It happens if you type a mismatched quotation marks when writing a print command.
  • NameError is another error in py. It happens if you don't use quotation marks at all.

  • A string with """ triple quotes can span multiple lines.

    • When not assigned to a variable, it can be used as a multi-line comment.
  • If you want to print both a string and a float or integer, you need to wrap the float or integer in this:

    • str()

    • print "This is the number: " + str(number)

  • You can define a specific letter within a string by using this:

    • fifth_letter = "MONTY"[4]

    • The above will assign the letter "Y" to the variable fifth_letter.

  • Methods that use dot notation only work with strings.

    • lion = "roar"
    • len(lion)
    • lion.upper()
  • You can use % to make printing strings easier:

    • name = "Mike"

    • print "Hello %s" % (name)

    • The above code will replace the %s with what comes after the second %

    • If there are multiple %s in a string, you need to input the same about of strings after it.

      • print "The %s who %s %s!" % ("Knights", "say", "Ni")
    • Theses are called placeholders.

      • There was actually something similar to this in the Flask RESTful tutorial from today that I was confused about. I'll go back and inspect it again now with fresh eyes.
  • For boolean operators:

    • 'Not' is evaluated first

    • 'And' is evaluated second

    • 'Or' is evaluated third

  • 'raw_input()' is used to accept user's input into the console.