Beginner Python Course
Welcome to our beginner Python Course!
In this course / e-book we teach the fundamentals of Python 3. This content is for students who are completely new to programming and Python.
Not sure which Python version to learn?
If you want to learn Python for your job, check which version of Python your company and colleagues use.
If you want to learn to potentially get a job in the future, or to learn for college or university, Python 3 is the best option. Python 2 is old and will soon lose support.
If you really aren't sure if you should be learning Python at all, my advice would be to give it a go. It's a great first language, and most things that you'll learn will be applicable to other programming languages as well!
What is code?
Code is instructions a computer can understand. We can write code and tell the computer to run it, and then the computer will do whatever the code we wrote tells it to.
For example, we can tell the computer to show some text on the screen; to display some graphics; or to perform calculations.
Everything you see in front of you—be it on your phone, tablet, or computer—is the result of code. Somebody, somewhere, wrote the code that allows you to read this (and I don't mean the text itself, I wrote that!).
How do you write code?
Code is written in a programming language. They are similar to human languages, but much simpler. We can't just write whatever we want though, in order for the computer to understand it, our code must follow what is accepted by the programming language we choose.
As an example, some programming languages make extensive use of the semicolon (;). Other programming languages do not use the semicolon. How we write our code depends on which programming language we use.
Python
Python is a fairly simple programming language, but it is very powerful. It can do everything that any other programming language can do, so you can use it to create almost anything!
In this course we will mostly be working with text in Python, and we will get the computer to show text to the screen. We will also allow users to give us text back, and we will be able to perform calculations with that text.
We will also be able to save things into our computer so that they remain there for the future.
What you will learn about Python can then also be applied to other programming languages, because most programming languages are similar in a lot of ways.
Structure of this e-book
Each section contains a TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) chapter that you can check out if you think you already know everything covered in the section, before moving on.
If you aren't sure you know everything covered in a section, I recommend you do not read that section's TL;DR as it can be confusing.
Each chapter normally contains code snippets, and we will teach you how to run them. I recommend you type out the code snippets as you go along, and try to run them.
Also, play around with the code we provide and change it if you have the chance. The more things you try out, the faster and better you'll learn!
Are you ready to get started?
Move on to the first section, Age program, where you'll build your first program.