Getting started with Python programming

To get started, you will need the Python interpreter or a Python IDE. An IDE is a tool that will make the experience of software development much better.

Related course:
Complete Python Programming Course & Exercises

Python interpreter

Python programs are simply a collection of text files. If you want something more sophisticated than notepad for editing, you will need a Python IDEs (recommend). A Python IDE will make programming Python easier.

You can download Python interpreter here: https://www.python.org/downloads/

The Python interpreter is a command line program, we’ll discuss it in the next lecture.

Python is often installed by default. To test if Python is installed, open a terminal or command line.
Then type python or python3. If the output is something like this, then it’s installed.

~ python3
Python 3.7.5 (default, Nov 20 2019, 09:21:52) 
[GCC 9.2.1 20191008] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

You can type quit() to exit the Python shell.

>>> quit()

If you don’t get this output, Python is not installed or not in the Path variable. See the next article on installation.

Python IDE

An IDE generally supports listing all program files, syntax highlighting and other features. There are lots of Python IDEs you could choose from.

Using one of these Python IDEs makes programming easier than in say, notepad. It will automatically color the text like the example below:

If you are a Python beginner, then I highly recommend this book.