Rob Miles - Begin to Code with Python

Rob Miles

BEGIN TO CODE WITH PYTHON

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Pearson Education, Inc.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5093-0452-3
ISBN-10: 1-5093-0452-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958202

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To Mary

Rob Miles has spent more than 30 years teaching programming at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. Hes a Microsoft MVP, with a passion for programming, and creating new things. If he had any spare time, hed spend it writing even more code. He loves making programs and then running them to see what happens. He reckons that programming is the most creative thing you can learn how to do.
He believes that programmers really can claim to be building the future.

He claims to know a lot of really good jokes, but nobody has ever heard him tell one. If you want an insight into the Wacky World of Rob Miles, you can read his blog at www.robmiles.com and follow him on Twitter via @RobMiles.

The chapter PDF files for this Part are available at https://aka.ms/BeginCodePython/downloads.

Contents

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The chapter PDF files for this Part are available at
https://aka.ms/BeginCodePython/downloads.

Introduction

Programming is the most creative thing you can learn how to do. Why? If you learn to paint, you can create pictures. If you learn to play the violin, you can make music. But if you learn to program, you can create entirely new experiences (and you can make pictures and music too, if you wish). Once youve started on the programming path, theres no limit to where you can go. There are always new devices, technologies, and marketplaces where you can use your programming skills.

Think of this book as your first step on a journey to programming enlightenment. The best journeys are undertaken with a destination in mind, and the destination of this journey is usefulness. By the end of this book, you will have the skills and knowledge to write useful programs.

However, before we begin, a small word of warning. Just as a guide would want to tell you about the lions, tigers, and crocodiles that you might encounter on a safari, I must tell you that our journey might not be all smooth going. Programmers must learn to think slightly differently about problem solving, because a computer just doesnt work the same way humans do. Humans can do complex things rather slowly. Computers can do simple things very quickly. It is the programmers job to harness the simple abilities of the machine to solve complicated problems. This is what youll learn to do.

The key to success as a programmer is much the same as for many other endeavors. To become a world-renowned violin player, you will have to practice a lot. The same is true for programming. You must spend a lot of time working on your programs to acquire code-writing skills. However, the good news is that just as a violin player really enjoys making the instrument sing, making a computer do exactly what you want turns out to be a very rewarding experience. It gets even more enjoyable when you see other people using programs that youve written and finding them useful and fun to use.

How this book fits together

Ive organized this book in three parts. Each part builds on the previous one with the aim of turning you into a successful programmer. We start off considering the low-level programming instructions that programs use to tell the computer what to do, and we finish by looking at professional software construction.

Part 1: Programming fundamentals

The first part gets you started. It points you to where youll install and use the programming tools that youll need to begin coding, and it introduces you to the fundamental elements of the Python programming language. Youll come to grips with writing your first programs and learn all the fundamental code constructions that underpin all programs. Youll also find out where Python fits in the great scheme of programming languages, and what this means for you as a programmer.