Learning Python — Concept Taxonomy

This taxonomy organizes the 450 concepts into 14 categories that reflect the natural structure of a beginning-to-advanced Python course. Categories are designed to be approximately equal in size, with none exceeding 30% of total concepts.

---

Taxonomy Categories

1. Environment & Tools (ENV)

TaxonomyID: ENV

Concepts covering Python installation, development environments, IDEs, the command line, virtual environments, and the overall ecosystem. These are the "before you code" concepts.

Concept IDs: 1–20

---

2. Core Syntax & Output (SYN)

TaxonomyID: SYN

Foundational Python syntax: the print statement, comments, indentation, keywords, code blocks, statements, expressions, and whitespace rules. The very first things a student writes.

Concept IDs: 21–30

---

3. Variables & Data Types (DAT)

TaxonomyID: DAT

Variables, assignment, naming conventions, and all primitive data types: integers, floats, booleans, strings, and None. Also includes type conversion functions.

Concept IDs: 31–85

---

4. Input & Control Flow (CTL)

TaxonomyID: CTL

User input, conditionals (if/elif/else/match), and all loop constructs (for, while, break, continue, enumerate, zip, range). The logic and flow control layer of Python.

Concept IDs: 86–114

---

5. Functions & Scope (FUN)

TaxonomyID: FUN

Defining and calling functions, parameters, return values, scope, recursion, lambda functions, higher-order functions, and docstrings. The fundamental abstraction unit.

Concept IDs: 115–136

---

6. Collections (COL)

TaxonomyID: COL

Python's built-in collection types: lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets with all their methods, comprehensions, and iteration patterns. Also includes built-in functions that operate on collections.

Concept IDs: 137–204

---

7. Modules & Standard Library (MOD)

TaxonomyID: MOD

The import system, custom modules, and the Python standard library including the random, math, string, time, sys, os, json, csv, collections, and itertools modules.

Concept IDs: 205–240

---

8. Text Processing & Regex (TXT)

TaxonomyID: TXT

Regular expression patterns, the re module, character classes, quantifiers, anchors, groups, substitution, and raw strings for pattern matching.

Concept IDs: 241–254

---

9. File I/O & Data (FIO)

TaxonomyID: FIO

File operations (open, read, write, close), the with statement, context managers, CSV and JSON file handling, and file path operations.

Concept IDs: 255–270

---

10. Error Handling & Debugging (ERR)

TaxonomyID: ERR

Exception types, try/except/finally, raise, assert, debugging strategies, tracebacks, the exception hierarchy, custom exceptions, and using documentation to debug.

Concept IDs: 271–284

---

11. Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

TaxonomyID: OOP

Classes, objects, attributes, methods, constructors, self, inheritance, dunder methods, properties, class vs instance variables, and object composition.

Concept IDs: 285–304

---

12. Turtle Graphics & Visualization (VIZ)

TaxonomyID: VIZ

The turtle graphics library, screen setup, movement and pen control, color and fill, shapes, text, events, animation, and complete turtle projects. Also matplotlib charts, NumPy arrays, Pillow image processing, and Jupyter canvas.

Concept IDs: 305–363, 414–417

---

13. Algorithms & Data Structures (ALG)

TaxonomyID: ALG

Abstract data types, stacks, queues, graphs, adjacency lists, BFS, DFS, sorting algorithms, binary search, and complexity analysis. The algorithmic thinking layer.

Concept IDs: 364–385

---

14. Advanced & Applied Python (ADV)

TaxonomyID: ADV

Machine learning with Keras, neural network concepts, the MNIST dataset, event-driven programming, programming best practices (DRY, modularity, refactoring), color theory, and computational thinking foundations (decomposition, abstraction, algorithm design).

Concept IDs: 386–413, 418–450

---

Summary Table

#	TaxonomyID	Category Name	Approx Count
1	ENV	Environment & Tools	20
2	SYN	Core Syntax & Output	10
3	DAT	Variables & Data Types	55
4	CTL	Input & Control Flow	29
5	FUN	Functions & Scope	22
6	COL	Collections	68
7	MOD	Modules & Standard Library	36
8	TXT	Text Processing & Regex	14
9	FIO	File I/O & Data	16
10	ERR	Error Handling & Debugging	14
11	OOP	Object-Oriented Programming	20
12	VIZ	Turtle Graphics & Visualization	63
13	ALG	Algorithms & Data Structures	22
14	ADV	Advanced & Applied Python	61
		Total	450