Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Computer Programming 1
in Python
At the end of this week, : you should be able to know the:
1.1 Introduction to The Python Programming Language
1.2 History
1.3 Areas of Application
1.4 Features
Prepared by: Sinkala
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
History of Python
Python was developed by Guido van Rossum in the late eighties and
early nineties at the National Research Institute for
Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands.
Python is derived from many other languages, including ABC,
Modula-3, C, C++, Algol-68, SmallTalk, and Unix shell and
other scripting languages
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Overview of Python
Today, Python is one of the most popular programming
languages. Python is consistently rated as one of the
world's most popular programming languages. Python
is fairly easy to learn, so if you are starting to learn any
programming language then Python could be your
great choice. Although it is a general-purpose
language, it is used in various areas of applications
such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, web
development, IoT, and more.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
What is Python?
Python is a very popular general-purpose
interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, dynamic
and high-level programming language.
It was created by Guido van Rossum during 1985-
1990. Like Perl, Python source code is also available
under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Python supports multiple programming paradigms, including
Procedural, Object Oriented and Functional programming
language.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Areas of application?
Python is very high in demand and all the major
companies using it include:
• Google
• Intel • Python for Data Science
• NASA •Python for Machine Learning
• PayPal •Python for Web Development
• Facebook •Python for Computer Vision
• IBM and Image processing
• Amazon •Python for Embedded Systems
• Netflix and IoT
• Uber •Python for Job Scheduling and
Automation
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Careers with Python
Some of the career options where Python is a key skill.- include:
• Game developer
• Web designer
• Python developer
• Full-stack developer
• Machine learning engineer
• Data scientist
• Data analyst
• Data engineer
• DevOps engineer
• Software engineer
• Many more other roles
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Some of the career options where Python is a key skill.-
include:
• It supports functional and structured programming methods
as well as OOP.
• It can be used as a scripting language or can be compiled to
byte-code for building large applications.
• It provides very high-level dynamic data types and supports
dynamic type checking.
• It supports automatic garbage collection.
• It can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX,
CORBA, and Java
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Features of Python
• Easy-to-learn/code − Python has few keywords, simple structure,
and a clearly defined syntax.
• Open Source and Free:
Python is an open-source programming language which means that
anyone can create and contribute to its development.
• A broad standard library − Python's bulk of the library is very
portable and cross-platform compatible on UNIX, Windows, and
Macintosh.
• Interactive Mode − Python has support for an interactive mode which
allows interactive testing and debugging of snippets of code.
• Highly Portable − Python can run on a wide variety of hardware
platforms and has the same interface on all platforms.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Features of Python
• Extendable − You can add low-level modules to the Python
interpreter. These modules enable programmers to add to or
customize their tools to be more efficient.
• Databases − Python provides interfaces to all major commercial
databases.
• GUI Programming − Python supports GUI applications that can
be created and ported to many system calls, libraries and
windows systems, such as Windows Foundation Classes(MFC),
Macintosh, and systems of Unix.
• Scalable − Python provides a better structure and support for
large programs than shell scripting.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Features of Python
Open Source and Free:
Python is an open-source programming language which means that
anyone can create and contribute to its development.
Support for GUI:
Python has support for a wide array of GUIs which can easily be
imported to the interpreter, thus making this one of the most
favorite languages for developers.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Character set:
character set is a valid set of characters recognized by the Python language.
These are the characters we can use during writing a script in Python.
Python supports all ASCII / Unicode characters that include:
• Alphabets: All capital (A-Z) and small (a-z) alphabets.
• Digits: All digits 0-9.
• Special Symbols: Python supports all kind of special symbols like, ” ‘ l
;:!~@#$%^`&*()_+–={}[]\.
• White Spaces: White spaces like tab space, blank space, newline,
and carriage return.
• Other: All ASCII and UNICODE characters are supported by Python
that constitutes the Python character set.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
A token is the smallest individual unit in a python
program. All statements and instructions in a
program are built with tokens. The various
tokens in python are
1. Keywords:
2. Identifiers:
3. Literals or Values:
4. Operators:
5. Punctuators:
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
1. Keywords:
Keywords are words that have some special
meaning or significance in a programming language.
They can’t be used as variable names, function
names, or any other random purpose. They are used
for their special features. In Python we have 33
keywords some of them are: try, False, True, class,
break, continue, and, as, assert, while, for, in, raise,
except, or, not, if, elif, print, import, etc
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
2. Identifiers:
Identifiers are the names given to any variable, function,
class, list, methods, etc. for their identification.
Python is a case-sensitive language and it has some rules
and regulations to name an identifier.
Python is case-sensitive. So case matters in naming
identifiers. And hence cuz and Cuz are two different
identifiers. RULES NAMING Identifiers
Identifier starts with a capital letter (A-Z) , a small letter (a-
z) or an underscore( _ ). It can’t start with any other character.
Except for letters and underscore, digits can also be a part of
identifier but can’t be the first character of it.
• Any other special characters or whitespaces are strictly
prohibited in an [Link] identifier can’t be a keyword
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
3. Literals or Values:
Literals are the fixed values or data items used in a
source code.
(i) String Literals: The text written in single,
double, or triple quotes represents the string
literals in Python
(ii) (ii) Character Literals: Character literal is also a
string literal type in which the character is
enclosed in single or double-quotes.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
3. Literals or Values:
(iii) Numeric Literals: These are the literals written in form
of numbers. Python supports the following numerical
literals:
• Integer Literal: It includes both positive and negative
numbers along with 0. It doesn’t include fractional
parts. It can also include binary, decimal, octal,
hexadecimal literal.
• Float Literal: It includes both positive and negative
real numbers. It also includes fractional parts.
• Complex Literal: It includes a+bi numeral, here a
represents the real part and b represents the complex
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
3. Literals or Values:
(iv) Boolean Literals: Boolean literals have only
two values in Python. These are True and False
(v) Special Literals: Python has a special literal
‘None’. It is used to denote nothing, no values, or the
absence of value.
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
4. Operators:
These are the tokens responsible to perform an
operation in an expression.
Operators refer to special symbols that perform operations
on values and variables.
Main categories include:
I. Arithmetic Operators
II. Relational Operators
[Link] Operators
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Arithmetic Operators
used to perform mathematical operations like
a) Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division,
Modulus, Exponentiation, Floor division
In Python, ** is the exponentiation operator
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
I. Relational Operators
Used for comparing two or more values.
It either returns True or False in accordance with the
condition. (also called comparison operators.)
>
<
>=
<=
== etc
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
I. Logical Operators
Python logical operators are used to combine
conditional statements, allowing you to perform
operations based on multiple conditions.
i. AND
ii. OR
iii. NOT
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Learning Outcomes of the Week: WEEK 1
Characteristics of Python
Tokens:
[Link]:
These are the symbols that are used in Python to
organize the structures, statements, and expressions.
Some of the Punctuators are:
[ ] { } ( ) @ -= += *= //= **== = , etc
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Tools to use:
Download: Python according to your specifications from
[Link]
Download VS CODE
[Link]
Thank you