Free Ebook Computer Programming in Python : A Byte of Python.pdf

Who This Book Is For

This book serves as a guide or tutorial to the Python programming language. It is intended to help both newbies as well as experienced programmers to learn and get started with Python. If all you know about computers is how to save text files, then you can learn Python from this book. If you have previous programming experience, then you can learn Python from this book also.

If you do have previous programming experience, you will be interested in the differences between Python and your favorite programming language and I have highlighted many such differences for you. A little warning though, Python is soon going to become your favorite programming language!

Introduction

Python is one of those rare languages which can claim to be both simple and powerful. You will be pleasantly surprised to see how easy it is to concentrate on the solution to the problem rather than on the syntax (i.e. the structure of the program that you are writing) of the language.

The official Python introduction is
Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. Python's elegant syntax and dynamic typing, together with its interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application development in many areas on most platforms.........more

I will discuss these features in more detail in the next section. By the way, Guido van Rossum (the creator of the Python language) named the language after the BBC show "Monty Python's Flying Circus". He doesn't particularly like snakes that kill animals for food by winding their long bodies around them and crushing them.

Features of Python

Simple
Python is a simple and minimalistic language. Reading a good Python program feels almost like reading English (but very strict English!). This pseudocode nature of Python is one of its greatest strengths. It allows you to concentrate on the solution to the problem rather than the syntax i.e. the language itself.

Easy to Learn
As you will see, Python is extremely easy to get started with. Python has an extraordinarily simple syntax as already mentioned.

Free and Open Source
Python is an example of a FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software). In simple terms, you can freely distribute copies of this software, read the software's source code, make changes to it, use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things. FLOSS is based on the concept of a community which shares knowledge. This is one of the reasons why Python is so good - it has been created and improved by a community who just want to see a better Python.

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