1.2 Python Basics

Introductory materials to Python will typically cover the same fundamental topics, with slight variations in order. It can be helpful to think of the Python language as a box of Lego. Once you open the box and get familiar with the various parts, you can start to put them together into simple processes and scripts. Below I have listed what I think of as the basic Lego parts of the Python language; you may be surprised with how far you can get with them.

Basic Python elements:

• creating variables and constants

• data types: strings, ints, and floats

• data structures: lists, dictionaries, tuples and sets 

• conditional branching: if, elif, and else statements 

• loops: for loops, while loops

• defining your own functions 

• reading and writing files, especially using common file types like .csv and .txt 

• try and except blocks

• organizing code into modules

• importing modules and figuring out how to use their contents by reading through documentation and examples 

I would say most of this material is straightforward to learn, as long as you can pay attention to small details. As Lionel Hutz once illustrated in The Simpsons, small details matter:

Learning Materials

There is a ton of learning material available on Python basics, in the form of books, videos, interactive courses and more. I guess the best approach is to try a few and then stick with whichever style best suits you. Personally, I learn best from books and YouTube videos, so I would try those first before signing up for an expensive course. 

The first book I ever read about Python was Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw, and I would highly recommend it unless you don't have a sense of humor. Here is how the cover looks:

What about object-oriented programming?

One thing I left out of my "basics list" is classes. In introductory Python materials you may come across one or more of these related terms: class, object, or object-oriented programming. What these terms are referring to is a way of organizing your code into "objects" that can have properties and also perform actions. A "class" is like a blueprint for building the objects. For example, you might define a class called Car, with properties color, position, weight, number of seats, and actions stop, go and fill gas. Once you create the class, you can use it as a blueprint to create several car objects, each with its own properties. 

You can think of object-oriented programming (sometimes referred to as OOP) as a design philosophy, in which you design your programs to be based on objects. But you can create a lot of interesting programs without knowing about classes and objects, so I would recommend that you not worry about this too much until you have worked on a few of your own programs first.