Python is a general-purpose programming language and has overtaken Java in popularity according to a recent Stackoverflow survey.
\nPeople who have never programmed before are tempted to try due to the simplicity to learn and use it. Well, let's get down to business.
\nBefore we get started, there are a few things you should know about python:
\nWe are assuming that you have already installed python. If you do not, please click here.
\nTo write your first Python code, open your text editor and type:
\nprint("Hello world, this is my first python code")Save the file as helloworld.py and put it into the python interpreter to be executed.\nYou also can run your code on the command line:
C:\\Users\\Your Name>python helloworld.pyIf everything went well, you should see something like this:
\n> Hello world, this is my first python codeYou can also use the print function to show integers, variables, lists, etc. Try it!
\n#show the sum of two integers\nnumber1 = 5\nnumber2 = 7\nprint(number1+number2)#dividing two decimals\nnumber1 = float(12.1)\nnumber2 = float(4)#concatenating strings\nname = "Python"\nphrase = str("I hate ")\nprint("I love ", name)\nprint(phrase+name)Python has the following data types built-in by default, in these categories:
\nstr (string)int (integer), float (decimal), complexlist, tuple, rangedictset, frozensetboolbytes, bytearray, memoryview\n\nNote: Variables in Python are interpreted as integers by default. Is a good practice to declare them as another type explicitly (if they aren't integers). You can see the kind of a variable using the function
\ntype().
Operators are used to performing operations on variables and values.\nThe main groups are:
\nArithmetic operators are used with numeric values to perform common mathematical operations.
\nx + yx - yx * yx / yx % y\tx ** y\tx // yComparison operators are used to compare two values.
\nx == yx != yx > yx < y\tx >= yx <= yLogical operators are used to combine conditional statements.
\nx < 2 and x < 4x < 10 or x < 9not(x < 2 and x < 4)Look to the code below:
\nage = 18\nif (age<21):\n print("The student is underage!")\nelif (age==21):\n print("The student is 21!")\nelse:\n print("The student isn't underage!")In programming, we often have to choose what to do depending on the situation. It is essential to know how to use conditional arguments like ifand else.\nThe code above print a different message according to a condition.
Try to write a code that asks for two test scores. If the average is less than 7, the user should see \"I'm sorry, you didn't do well on the tests\". If the average is exactly 7, the user should see \"You did it!\". And if it is greater than 7, the user should see \"Congratulations!! You're a great student.\".
\n\n\nNote: to request a response from the user, you need to use the
\ninput()function. For example:
name = str(input("What's your name?"))\nage = int(input("How old are you? "))\nprint("I'm %s and I'm %d"% (name, age))Python has two primitive loop commands: while and for.
With the while loop, we can execute a set of statements as long as a condition is true.
\ncount = 0\nwhile count < 10:\n print(count)\n count += 1 #this line is the same as count = count+1The code above will print count as long as count is less than 10.
\nA for loop is used for iterating over a sequence. Using it, we can execute a set of statements, once for each item in a list, tuple, set, string, etc. For example:
\n#loop through a string\nfor x in "banana":\n print(x)#loop through a list of fruits\nfruits = ["apple", "banana", "melon"]\nfor x in fruits:\n print("I like", x)Did you understand why python became so popular? In a few minutes, you were able to learn the main concepts of this fantastic language.
\nPlease comment and share this article!
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