python.md

Python Learning Path

Codecademy comes strongly recommended by fellow Stryke Force developers and should be where you start learning the Python programming language.

Basic

Set up a Python development environment

This will get you up and running with Python 3 on a development laptop. You should be relatively comfortable with running commands and changing directories, setting permissions for files and folders from the command line.

Tasks

1. Launch the terminal and change directory to you home directory.
2. Create a work directory if one doesn't already exist.
3. Change directory to your work directory and launch the Atom editor: atom .
4. Create hello.py and write a program to write "Hello, World!" to output.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

print("Hello, World!")

5. Back in the terminal, run you new script in Python 3.

~/exercises $ python3 hello.py
Hello, World!

6. Make the script executable and run it directly from the command line.

~/exercises $ chmod +x hello.py
~/exercises $ ./hello.py
Hello, World!

Example

• hello.py

References

• Python
• Atom editor
• "Hello World!" program
• Shebang (Unix)
• print()

Python Basic Data Types

See this python.org tutorial for an introduction to basic data types: An Informal Introduction to Python

Stop when you reach section 3.2, "First Steps Towards Programming".

Examples

• numbers.py
• variables.py
• strings.py

References

• len()
• str.format()

First Steps Towards Programming

Generate the first few numbers of the Fibonacci series by following section 3.2 of the python.org tutorial.

Example

• fibo.py

References

• while

More Control Flow Statements

Continue the python.org tutorial on more control flow tools.

Stop when you reach section 4.6, "Defining Functions".

Defining Functions

Continue the python.org tutorial on defining functions.

Stop when you reach section 4.7, "More on Defining Functions".