Hour 3. Setting Up a Programming Environment
What You’ll Learn in This Hour:
Why learn Python?
How to check your Python environment
The Python interactive shell
Using a Python development environment
How to create and run a Python scriptThis hour, you will explore the Python programming environment. You will learn about the various
tools that can help as you learn how to program in Python. By the end of this hour, you will be
familiar with the Python interactive shell and a Python development environment, and you will have
written your first line of Python code!
Exploring Python
You would not be reading this book if you were not interested in learning Python! The Python
programming language is an extremely popular language. It is one of the most used programming
languages. Python can be used on a wide variety of platforms, such as Windows, Linux-based
systems, and Apple OS X. One of its best features is that it’s free!
More good news: The Python programming language has easy-to-understand syntax. Syntax refers to
the Python commands, their proper order in a Python statement, and additional characters, such as a
quotation mark ("), needed to make a Python statement work properly. Python’s syntax makes it easy
for a beginner to start programming quickly. Despite its ease of use, Python contains a lot of rich and
powerful features that make it useful for advanced programmers.
A Little Python History
The Python programming language was invented in the early 1990s by Guido van Rossum. The name
Python was based on the popular television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Through the years, the Python programming language has become extremely popular. It also has gone
through some changes.
Python v3 Versus Python v2
Python recently went from version 2 to version 3. Here are a few of the major differences between
the two versions:
Python v3 is based upon Unicode and provides a more predictable handling of it. Unicode is the
way a computer encodes, represents, and handles individual characters. Python v2 is based on
ASCII, which can handle only English characters. Unicode can handle English characters and
non-English characters.
Python v3 is a smaller language than Python v2. A favorite saying of Python developers is
“Python fits in your brain.” This sentiment is even more true of Python v3 than of Python v2, so
it is even easier to learn Python quickly now.