Introduction

There are dozens of different programming languages to choose from, so many that it can become hard to decide which one is best for what you are working on. Each language has pros and cons, often times the more complex the language, the potentially faster it will perform on your system. Python strikes a great balance between performance and ease-of-use. The object-oriented side of Python makes it very easy to re-use code, and the functional programming side makes it intuitive to see how the program will iterate. It also runs on just about any operating system, which gives your programs the benefit of portability. Furthermore, Python has a tremendous user community and hundreds of libraries that make it easy to work with just about anything, whether you want to light an LED, read a sensor, draw a graph or run a website. In this Chapter, we will explore Python in enough depth to get you comfortable using it on your Raspberry Pi Zero.