Easy to understand intro to Python

Build applications in python the anti-textbook Source Read online Watch Download Code Donate On Github Free on Gitbooks The YouTube series Gitbooks On Github Why donate?

The tutorial is available for free download all formats via Gitbooks, your donations would help me add new content and make this guide better!

What is this?

An easy to understand introduction to the Python programming language by using examples. You will build a command line todo list manager after you understand the basics of the language. Please have a Python 3 interpreter with you because you'll need to run code as you read!

Why Python?

There are a large number of languages out there and new coming out new week, so this question is important, why learn Python over X. There is one simple answer for this, Python is an open source language having a very wide adoption and it has one of the simplest syntaxes of all languages, it feels like writing English. You can quickly write programs to solve problems in Python (it takes less number of lines and less time for writing a Python script).

Installation

linux and Mac, congrats! You already have Python installed, use your package manager in Linux to install the python3 package, and brew for Mac.

windows, you can download the .msi or .exe file from https://python.org , run the installer, click on Next Next until it finishes.

Android, install termux & run apt-get install python3 to install python inside it.

Background

This tutorial is the culmination of the Python trainings I have given in the past. As I took the trainings, I wanted to refer the participants to a tutorial which would be light weight yet effective and would explain by example rather than by theory. There are many guides for Python, but I didn't find the one I was looking for. As someone said, "If your dream book hasn't been written, write it!", hence I started to write this guide.

I don't profess to be a God at anything, but I do feel that good things happen when a group comes together for one goal. This is an open source guide and I invite you to contribute.

Multiversity

This guide is a part of the Multiversity initiative. The aim is to have high quality open source tutorials along with screencasts.

2Or3

This guide focuses only on Python3, Python2 is on life support and we do not recommend using it, unless there is an exceptional scenario.

Writing Style

We have thirteen chapters:

Each chapter has an associated YouTube screencast. Each chapter has concepts explained by an example (can be as stupid as 1+1=2) Code that is supposed to run on the Interpreter starts with >>> like >>> not True . In this case, >>> not True is the statement and False is the output. >>> not True False Code that doesn't start with >>> is supposed to be run in a file of the extension .py If there is significant code for the chapter, you can find a file in the code repository, please look on the basis of chapters. How to use? Read the chapters end to end. Watch the YouTube screencast, there is a reason why they are free! Do NOT search the Internet for things like "how to do X in python", use the documentation. Contribution

We need your help to become a great guide! All contributions are welcome. Please raise an issue on Github!

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