Old is Gold

An Informal Introduction to Python- Introduction to Python---------!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~( Introduction to Python Python is a high-level general purpose programming language. Because code is automatically compiled to byte code and executed, Python is suitable for use as a scripting language, Web application implementation language, etc. Because Python can be extended in C and C++, Python can provide the speed needed for even compute intensive tasks. 1.1 Important Features of Python *.Built-in high level data types: strings, lists, dictionaries, etc. *.The usual control structures: if, if-else, if-elif-else, while, plus a powerful collection iterator (for). *.Multiple levels of organizational structure: functions, classes, modules, and packages. These assist in organizing code. An excellent and large example is the Python standard library. *.Compile on the fly to byte code -- Source code is compiled to byte code without a separate compile step. Source code modules can also be "pre-compiled" to byte code files. *.Extensions in C and C++ -- Extension modules and extension types can be written by hand. There are also tools that help with this, for example,SWIG,sip,Pyrex. Some things you will need to know: *.Python uses indentation to show block structure. Indent one level to show the beginning of a block. Out-dent one level to show the end of a block. As an example, the following C-style code: if (x) { if (y) { f1() } f2() } in Python would be: if x: if y: f1() f2() And, the convention is to use four spaces (and no tabs) for each level of indentation. 1.2 Where to Go For Additional help *.The standard Python documentation set -- It contains a tutorial, a language reference, the standard library reference, and documents on extending Python in C/C++. *.Other Python tutorials -- See especially: *. Beginner's Guide to Python - http://wiki.python.org /moin/BeginnersGuide *.Other Python resources -- See especially: *. Python documentation - http://www.python.org/ doc/ *. the Python home Web site - http://www.python.org/ *. The whole Python FAQ - http://www.python.org /doc/FAQ.html