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Expert Python Programming

You're reading from   Expert Python Programming Write professional, efficient and maintainable code in Python

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Product type Paperback
Published in May 2016
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781785886850
Length 536 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
Languages
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Author (1):
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Michał Jaworski Michał Jaworski
Author Profile Icon Michał Jaworski
Michał Jaworski
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Toc

Table of Contents (16) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Current Status of Python FREE CHAPTER 2. Syntax Best Practices – below the Class Level 3. Syntax Best Practices – above the Class Level 4. Choosing Good Names 5. Writing a Package 6. Deploying Code 7. Python Extensions in Other Languages 8. Managing Code 9. Documenting Your Project 10. Test-Driven Development 11. Optimization – General Principles and Profiling Techniques 12. Optimization – Some Powerful Techniques 13. Concurrency 14. Useful Design Patterns Index

Caching

When some of your application function takes too long to compute, the useful technique to consider is caching. Caching is nothing but saving a return value for future reference. The result of a function or method that is expensive to run can be cached as long as:

  • The function is deterministic and the results have the same value every time, given the same input
  • The return value of the function continues to be useful and valid for some period of time (nondeterministic)

In other words, a deterministic function always returns the same result for the same set of arguments, whereas a nondeterministic one returns results that may vary in time. Such an approach usually greatly reduces the time of computation and allows you to save a lot of computer resources.

The most important requirement for any caching solution is to have a storage that allows you to retrieve saved values significantly faster than it takes to calculate them. Good candidates for caching are usually:

  • Results from callables...
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