Five Minutes Technology - Python – Module 01 - Introduction
What is Python?
Python is a very easy to learn, high-level, interpreted, and dynamic programming language.
Easy to learn – Because the syntax is very simple and a lot of functionality can be achieved with few lines of code.
High level language – Some programming languages are considered high-level because they are very closer to human languages rather than machine understandable assembly languages.
C is one of the popular examples for high level language.
High level language code is converted to machine readable format using a compiler or interpreter.
Interpreted language – Some programming languages like C require a separate compiler for compiling the code before it can be run in the system. But interpreted languages like Python doesn’t require a separate compiler. The Python interpreter takes care of running the code directly.
Dynamic language – A programming language is dynamic when there is no need to declare variable with specific type.
Python can identify the datatype automatically based on the value assigned.
Python is very simple but very powerful. It can be used as a programming language for a simple website back-end as well as complex artificial intelligence systems.
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Installing Python
Most Linux systems comes with pre-installed Python.
You can check if your Linux system has Python by running the following command in your command prompt / terminal
python –V
For Windows and Mac systems, visit www.python.org, to download the installer.
You can also refer to https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Download for more information on downloading and installing Python.
Python IDEs
IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. It is a software application that provides graphical user interface (GUI) and makes mundane coding tasks simple.
There are quite a few IDEs available for Python coding.
PyCharm - https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/
Sublime Text - http://www.sublimetext.com/
Thonny - http://thonny.org/
Spyder - https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder
We will be using PyCharm in this series but you can use any IDE of your preference.
You can also run the Python code scripts directly from command prompt or terminal.
Let's get started!
Once you have installed Python in your computer, open your IDE or command prompt / terminal and write your first Python code
python
print (“Hello World”);
Command Prompt / Terminal
PyCharm IDE
If you get the output as
Hello World
You are all set. Welcome to Python World!
