Python for AI glossary
Key terms from this course, in plain English.
- API
- Application programming interface: a way for programs to request services from another system, such as an AI model.
- API key
- A secret credential that identifies and authorises your API requests.
- Boolean
- A True or False value.
- Colab
- Google's free, browser-based notebook environment for Python.
- CSV
- Comma-separated values: a simple text format for tables.
- DataFrame
- pandas' table structure of rows and named columns.
- Dictionary
- A Python collection mapping keys to values.
- Environment variable
- A setting stored outside your code, commonly used for secrets such as API keys.
- f-string
- A string prefixed with f that inserts values inside {curly braces}.
- Function
- A named, reusable block of code that can take inputs and return an output.
- groupby
- A pandas operation that splits data into groups to summarise each.
- JSON
- JavaScript Object Notation: a text format for structured data used by most web APIs.
- List
- An ordered Python collection of items.
- List comprehension
- A concise way to build a list from another, e.g. [x*2 for x in nums].
- Notebook
- An interactive document mixing code cells, outputs and notes.
- pandas
- The standard Python library for tabular data analysis.
- Rate limit
- A cap on how many requests or tokens you can use per minute.
- Regular expression
- A pattern language for finding and manipulating text.
- SDK
- Software development kit: a library that makes an API easy to use from a language such as Python.
- String
- A sequence of characters — text.
- try/except
- Python's way of catching and handling errors.
- Virtual environment
- An isolated set of Python packages for one project.