On the other hand, if you don't have any experience with programming this book may be a bit daunting. You'll be learning not just a programming language but many of the topics and issues common to all languages at the same time. And to be fair, we don't spend a lot of time trying to explain these areas of "assumed knowledge". This doesn't mean you can't learn from this book! It just means that you might have to work a bit harder, read sections multiple times, and perhaps get guidance from others. The reward for this effort, though, is that you'll start to develop the knowledge and instincts for approaching other languages, and this is a critical skill for the professional programmer. Another great effect of the "batteries included" approach is that it means that many scripts – even non-trivial ones – can be run immediately on any Python installation. This removes a common, annoying barrier to installing software that you can face with other languages. The control flow structures of Python, such as for-loops, while-loops, and if-statements, are all introduced by statements which are terminated by a colon, indicating that the body of the construct is to follow. For example, for-loops require a body, so if you enter: >>> for i in range(5): ... We think Python is a great language, and we're excited to help you get started with it. By the time you get through this book, you will be able to write substantial Python programs, and you'll be able to read even more complex ones. More importantly, you'll have the foundation you need to go out and discover all of the more advanced topics in the language, and hopefully we'll get you excited enough about Python to actually do so. Python is a big language with a huge eco-system of software built in and around it, and it can be a real adventure to discover everything it has to offer.

You should now see a progress indicator appear, which will disappear when installation is complete. There are some exceptions to these rules, but they almost always have to do with improving code readability in other ways, for example by breaking up necessarily long statements over multiple lines. As mentioned earlier, Python comes with an extensive standard library, an aspect of Python that is often referred to as batteries included. The standard library is structured as modules, a topic we'll discuss in depth later. What's important at this stage is to know that you gain access to standard library modules by using the import keyword. To get help, simply type help at the prompt: >>> help Type help() for interactive help, or help(object) for help about object. Welcome to The Python Apprentice! Our goal with this book is to give you a practical and thorough introduction to the Python programming language, providing you with the tools and insight you need to be a productive member of nearly any Python project. Python is a big language, and its not our intention with this book to cover everything there is to know. Rather we want to help you build solid foundations, orient you in the sometimes bewildering universe of Python, and put you in a position to direct your own continued learning.

Your content + our content + our platform = a path to learning success

This simple expression is quite verbose with all those references to the math module. The Python import statement has an alternative form that allows us to bring a specific function from a module into the current namespace by using the from keyword: >>> from math import factorial >>> factorial(n) / (factorial(k) * factorial(n - k)) 10.0 The Data Analyst Level 4 Apprenticeship is a great course, not only have I already learnt things that I didn’t think I’d be able to learn, but I’ve discovered new programmes that I had no idea existed before this course, that have added a huge amount of value to my work. My confidence has also already grown a huge amount, and I’m not even halfway through the course. The Apprentice Academy are very supportive and really get to know how you learn and what they can do to improve the experience for you, this is my second course with them and again I would highly recommend!”

Our loop body will contain a second statement, so after pressing Return at the next three dot prompt we'll enter another four spaces followed by a call to the built-in print() function: ... print(x) What's notable is that many other programming languages would fail on the above expression for even moderate values of n. In most programming languages, regular garden variety signed integers can only store values less than { ParseError: KaTeX parse error: Expected 'EOF', got '}' at position 1: }̲2\times10 I’ve had an amazing learning experience so far with The Apprentice Academy’s Data Analyst course. It’s given me the opportunity to learn things I’ve been wanting to for a while. The combination of regular taught sessions and online resources strikes a good balance, and I always feel supported whenever I need help. I’m excited to continue the course and dive into topics like machine learning and AI.” But that's just one part of what makes Python great. Another is that Python is wonderfully open. Its open-source, so you can get to know every aspect of itif you want. At the same time, Python is hugely popular and has a great community to support youwhen you run into trouble. This combination of openness and large userbase means that almost anyone – from casual programmers to professional software developers – can engage with the language at the level they need. In the installer, decide whether you only want to install Python for yourself, or for all users of your machine.Within an interactive Python session you can enter fragments of Python programs and see instant results. Let's start with some simple arithmetic: >>> 2 + 2 4 >>> 6 * 7 42

Many programming languages are at the center of a cultural movement. They have their own communities, values, practices, and philosophy, and Python is no exception. The development of the Python language itself is managed through a series of documents called Python Enhancement Proposals, or PEPs. One of the PEPs, called PEP 8, explains how you should format your code, and we follow its guidelines throughout this book. For example, it is PEP 8 which recommends that we use four spaces for indentation in new Python code. Choose a location for the Python distribution. The default will be in C:\Python35 in the root of the C: drive. We don't recommended installing Modularity: We look at the tools Python has for structuring your code, such as functions and modules. Exceptions: We learn about Python's exception-handling system and the central role that exceptions play in the language. Within the REPL you can use the special underscore variable to refer to the most recently printed value, this being one of very few obscure shortcuts in Python: >>> _ 15Since import is a statement which doesn't return a value, Python doesn't print anything if the import succeeds, and we're immediately returned to the prompt. We can access the contents of the imported module by using the name of the module, followed by a dot, followed by the name of the attribute in the module that you need. Like many object manager. We'll show how to install Python on a recent version of Ubuntu, but the process is very similar on most other modern Linux distributions. Defining new types with classes: We cover developing your own complex data types in Python using classes to support object-oriented programming. We'll leave you to explore the first form — for interactive help — in your own time. Here we'll go for the second option and pass the math module as the object for which we want help: >>> help(math) Help on module math: NAME math MODULE REFERENCE http://docs.python.org/3.3/library/math The following documentation is automatically generated from the Now practice using help() to request specific help on the factorial function: >>> help(math.factorial) Help on built-in function factorial in module math: factorial(...) factorial(x) -> Integral Find x!. Raise a ValueError if x is negative or non-integral.

Python will present you with a prompt of three dots to request that you provide the body. One distinctive (and sometimes controversial) aspect of Python is that leading whitespace is syntactically significant. Python is a general-purpose programming language. It's not intended for use in any particular domain or environment, but instead can be fruitfully used for a wide variety of tasks. There are, of course, some areas where it's less suitable than others – for example in extremely time-sensitive or memory-constrained environments – but for the most part Python is as flexible and adaptable as many modern programming language, and more so than most. There are multiple implementations of the Python language. The original – and still by far the most common – implementation is written in C. This version is commonly referred to as CPython. When someone talks about "running Python", it's normally safe to assume that they are talking about CPython, and this is the implementation that we'll be using for this book. The aim of this development programme is to increase confidence, competence, and career capability.As you can see, Python reads our input, evaluates it, prints the result, and loops around to do the same again.