Introduction
Python is a popular programming language that is widely used for web development, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and many other applications. It is known for its simple and easy-to-learn syntax, making it a great language for beginners to start with. In this tutorial, we will cover the basics of Python and guide you through the process of learning it.
Getting Started
Before we dive into learning Python, we need to make sure that we have the necessary tools to write and run Python code. The first thing you need is a code editor. There are many code editors available, but for this tutorial, we will be using Visual Studio Code. It is a free and open-source code editor that is widely used by developers.
Next, we need to install Python on our computer. You can download the latest version of Python from the official website. Make sure to select the appropriate version for your operating system.
Once you have installed Python, open Visual Studio Code and create a new file with the .py
extension. This is the file extension used for Python files. Now, we are ready to start writing our first Python code.
Hello World!
In programming, the first program you write is usually a simple program that prints Hello, World!
to the screen. This is a tradition that has been followed for many years. Let's write our first Python code to print Hello, World!
to the screen.
Open the .py
file in Visual Studio Code and type the following code:
print("Hello, World!")
Save the file and run it by clicking on the Run
button in the top menu. You should see Hello, World!
printed in the terminal window.
Congratulations, you have written your first Python code!
Variables and Data Types
In Python, variables are used to store data. They act as containers that hold a value. To create a variable in Python, we use the =
operator. Let's create a variable called name
and assign it the value "John"
.
name = "John"
Now, we can print the value of the name
variable to the screen by using the print()
function.
print(name)
This will print John
to the screen. In Python, we don't need to specify the data type of a variable. Python automatically assigns the appropriate data type based on the value assigned to the variable.
There are different data types in Python, such as int
for integers, float
for floating-point numbers, str
for strings, bool
for boolean values, and more. You can use the type()
function to check the data type of a variable.
For example, let's create a variable called age
and assign it the value 25
. Then, we can use the type()
function to check its data type.
age = 25
print(type(age))
This will print int
to the screen, indicating that the data type of the age
variable is an integer.