Glossary: Python Basics

Welcome! This alphabetized glossary contains many of the terms you'll find within this course. This
comprehensive glossary also includes additional industry-recognized terms not used in course videos. These
terms are important for you to recognize when working in the industry, participating in user groups, and
participating in other certificate programs.

Term Definition

AI (artificial intelligence) is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled

AI
robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.

Application development, or app development, is the process of planning, designing,

Application
creating, testing, and deploying a software application to perform various business
development
operations.

Arithmetic operations are the basic calculations we make in everyday life like
Arithmetic
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is also called as algebraic
Operations
operations or mathematical operations.

Set of numbers or objects that follow a pattern presented as an arrangement of rows

Array of numbers
and columns to explain multiplication.

Assignment operator is a type of Binary operator that helps in modifying the variable
Assignment
to its left with the use of its value to the right. The symbol used for assignment
operator in Python
operator is "=".

Asterisk Symbol "* " used to perform various operations in Python.

A backslash is an escape character used in Python strings to indicate that the

Backslash character immediately following it should be treated in a special way, such as being
treated as escaped character or raw string.

Denoting a system of algebraic notation used to represent logical propositions by

Boolean
means of the binary digits 0 (false) and 1 (true).

A colon is used to represent an indented block. It is also used to fetch data and index
Colon
ranges or arrays.

Concatenate Link (things) together in a chain or series.

Data engineers are responsible for turning raw data into information that an
Data engineering organization can understand and use. Their work involves blending, testing, and
optimizing data from numerous sources.

Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on extracting knowledge from

data sets which are typically huge in amount. The field encompasses analysis,
Data science
preparing data for analysis, and presenting findings to inform high-level decisions in
an organization.

Data type refers to the type of value a variable has and what type of mathematical,
Data type
relational or logical operations can be applied without causing an error.

Double quote Symbol “ “ used to represent strings in Python.

Term Definition

An escape sequence is two or more characters that often begin with an escape
Escape sequence
character that tell the computer to perform a function or command.

An expression is a combination of operators and operands that is interpreted to

Expression
produce some other value.

Python float () function is used to return a floating-point number from a number or a

Float
string representation of a numeric value.

Forward slash Symbol “/“ used to perform various operation sin Python

Foundational Denoting an underlying basis or principle; fundamental.

Immutable Objects are of in-built datatypes like int, float, bool, string, Unicode, and
Immutable
tuple. In simple words, an immutable object can’t be changed after it is created.

An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, and so on) or a
Integer
negative integer with a minus sign (−1, −2, −3, and so on.)

Is the process of modifying a string or creating a new string by making changes to

Manipulate
existing strings.

Mathematical A mathematical convention is a fact, name, notation, or usage which is generally

conventions agreed upon by mathematicians.

Mathematical Expressions in math are mathematical statements that have a minimum of two terms
expressions containing numbers or variables, or both, connected by an operator in between.

Mathematical The mathematical “operation” refers to calculating a value using operands and a
operations math operator.

Allows you to access elements of a sequence (such as a list, a string, or a tuple) from
Negative indexing
the end, using negative numbers as indexes.

Operands The quantity on which an operation is to be done.

Operators in
Operators are used to perform operations on variables and values.
Python

Parentheses Parentheses is used to call an object.

Replicate To make an exact copy of.

Sequence A sequence is formally defined as a function whose domain is an interval of integers.

Single quote Symbol ‘ ‘ used to represent strings in python.

Slicing in Python Slicing is used to return a portion from defined list.

A special character is one that is not considered a number or letter. Symbols, accent
Special characters
marks, and punctuation marks are considered special characters.

Stride is the number of bytes from one row of pixels in memory to the next row of
Stride value
pixels in memory.

Strings In Python, Strings are arrays of bytes representing Unicode characters.

Term Definition

Substring A substring is a sequence of characters that are part of an original string.

The process of converting one data type to another data type is called Typecasting or
Type casting
Type Coercion or Type Conversion.

Data types are the classification or categorization of data items. It represents the kind
Types in Python
of value that tells what operations can be performed on a particular data.

Variables Variables are containers for storing data values.