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Getting Started with Python

The Python language had a humble beginning in the late 1980s when a Dutchman Guido Von Rossum started working on a fun project, which would be a successor to ABC language with better exception handling and capability to interface with OS Amoeba at Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica. It first appeared in 1991. Python 2.0 was released in the year 2000 and Python 3.0 was released in the year 2008. The language was named Python after the famous British television comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus, which was one of Guido's favorite television programmes. Here we will see why Python has suddenly influenced our lives and the various applications that use Python and its implementations. In this chapter, you will be learning the basic installation steps that are required to perform on different platforms (that is Windows, Linux, and Mac), about environment variables, setting up of environment variables, file formats, Python interactive shell, basic syntaxes and finally printing out formatted output.

Why Python?

Now you might be suddenly bogged with the question, why Python? According to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2016 ranking Python ranked third after C and Java. As per Indeed.com's data of 2016, the Python job market search ranked fifth. Clearly, all the data points to the ever rising demand in the job market for Python. Its a cool language if you want to learn just for fun or if you want to build your career around Python, you will adore the language. At school level, many schools have started including Python programming for kids. With new technologies taking the market by surprise Python has been playing a dominant role. Whether it is cloud platform, mobile app development, BigData, IoT with Raspberry Pi, or the new Blockchain technology, Python is being seen as a niche language platform to develop and deliver a scalable and robust applications.

Some key features of the language are:

Python programs can run on any platform, you can carry code created in Windows machine and run it on Mac or Linux
Python has inbuilt large library with prebuilt and portable functionality, also known as the standard library
Python is an expressive language
Python is free and open source
Python code is about one third of the size of equivalent C++ and Java code
Python can be both dynamically and strongly typed--dynamically typed means it is a type of variable that is interpreted at runtime, which means, in Python, there is no need to define the type (int or float) of the variable

Python applications

One of the most famous platforms where Python is extensively used is YouTube. The other places where you will find Python being extensively used are the special effects in Hollywood movies, drug evolution and discovery, traffic control systems, ERP systems, cloud hosting, e-commerce platform, CRM systems, and whatever field you can think of.

Versions

At the time of writing this book, two main versions of the Python programming language were available in the market, which are Python 2.x and Python 3.x. The stable release as of writing the book were Python 2.7.13 and Python 3.6.0.

Implementations of Python

Major implementations include CPython, Jython, IronPython, MicroPython, and PyPy.

Key benefits

Make the best of Python features

Learn the tinge of Python in 7 days

Learn complex concepts using the most simple examples

Description

Python is a great language to get started in the world of programming and application development. This book will help you to take your skills to the next level having a good knowledge of the fundamentals of Python. We begin with the absolute foundation, covering the basic syntax, type variables and operators. We'll then move on to concepts like statements, arrays, operators, string processing and I/O handling. You’ll be able to learn how to operate tuples and understand the functions and methods of lists. We’ll help you develop a deep understanding of list and tuples and learn python dictionary. As you progress through the book, you’ll learn about function parameters and how to use control statements with the loop. You’ll further learn how to create modules and packages, storing of data as well as handling errors. We later dive into advanced level concepts such as Python collections and how to use class, methods, objects in python. By the end of this book, you will be able to take your skills to the next level having a good knowledge of the fundamentals of Python.

What you will learn

Use if else statement with loops and how to break, skip the loop

Get acquainted with python types and its operators

Create modules and packages

Learn slicing, indexing and string methods

Explore advanced concepts like collections, class and objects

Learn dictionary operation and methods

Discover the scope and function of variables with arguments and return value

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DNAunion Dec 26, 2017

Although published in 2017, this book does not cover the latest version of Python, and explicitly stated:"For this book, you need to install Python 2.7x version on your machine, along with a simpletext editor (Notepad or Notepad++). All the examples are meant to be run on the Python 2.7version and will not work in Python 3.x versions."This is very strange considering that Python 3 has been out since 2008, and Python.org says "Short version: Python 2.x is legacy, Python 3.x is the present and future of the language "I am getting a big disgusted with Packt books.

Amazon Verified review

Ann Oct 27, 2017

Very poorly explained and full of errors

Learn Python in 7 Days: Begin your journey with Python

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Getting Started with Python

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