Unit 1 : Introduction to Python

By : Bhavika Vaghela
Asst. Prof. Bhavika Vaghela
PICA - PU
What is Python?
• Python is a general purpose, dynamic, high-level, and
interpreted programming language.
• It supports Object Oriented programming approach to develop
applications.
• Python is a cross-platform programming language, which means
that it can run on multiple platforms like Windows, macOS,
Linux, and has even been ported to the Java and .NET virtual
machines.
• It is free and open-source.
• Python is not intended to work in a particular area, such as web
programming.
• That is why it is known as multipurpose programming
language because it can be used with web, enterprise, 3D CAD,
etc.
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• We don't need to use data types to declare variable because it
is dynamically typed so we can write a=10 to assign an integer
value in an integer variable.
• Python makes the development and debugging fast because
there is no compilation step included in Python development,
and edit-test-debug cycle is very fast.
• Python is also incredibly useful at integration of tasks.
Websites like YouTube, Quora, Flipkart, Slack, Uber,
Cloudera, Instagram, Zenefits and Spotify are created using
Python.

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Python 2 VS Python 3
• Python 2 uses print as a statement and used as print
"something" to print some string on the console. On the other
hand, Python 3 uses print as a function.
• Python 2 uses the function raw_input() to accept the user's
input. Python 3 uses input() function which automatically
interpreted the type of input entered by the user. However, we
can cast this value to any type by using primitive functions
(int(), str(), etc.).
• In Python 2, the implicit string type is ASCII, whereas, in
Python 3, the implicit string type is Unicode.
• Python 3 doesn't contain the xrange() function of Python 2.
The xrange() is the variant of range() function which returns a
xrange object that works similar to Java iterator. The range()
returns a list for example the function range(0,3) contains 0, 1,
2.
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• There is also a small change made in Exception handling in
Python 3. It defines a keyword as which is necessary to be used.
VERSIONS RELEASED and History of Python
• Python2.1 was released on April 17, 2001.
• Python2.2 was released on December 21, 2001.
• Python2.3 was released on July 29, 2003.
• Python2.4 was released on November 30, 2004.
• Python2.5 was released on September 19, 2006.
• Python2.6 was released on October 1, 2008.
• Python 2.7 was released on July 3, 2010.
• Python 3.9.2 is the latest version released on February 19,
2021
[Link]
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• Python laid its foundation in the late 1980s.
• The implementation of Python was started in the December 1989
by Guido Van Rossum at CWI in Netherland.
• In February 1991, van Rossum published the code (labeled version
0.9.0) to [Link].
• In 1994, Python 1.0 was released with new features like: lambda,
map, filter, and reduce.
• Python 2.0 added new features like: list comprehensions, garbage
collection system.
• On December 3, 2008, Python 3.0 (also called "Py3K") was released.
It was designed to rectify fundamental flaw of the language.
• ABC programming language is said to be the predecessor of Python
language which was capable of Exception Handling and interfacing
with Amoeba Operating System.
• Python is influenced by following programming languages:
– ABC language.
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Features or advantages of python

• Python is easy to learn and use. It is developer-friendly and high level

programming language.
• Python language is more expressive means that it is more
understandable and readable.
• is an interpreted language i.e. interpreter executes the code line by
line at a time. This makes debugging easy and thus suitable for
beginners.
• Cross-platform Language, Python can run equally on different
platforms such as Windows, Linux, Unix and Macintosh etc. So, we
can say that Python is a portable language.
• Free and Open Source Python language is freely available at offical
web address. The source-code is also available.
• Object-Oriented Language, Python supports object oriented language
and concepts of classes and objects come into existence.

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• Large Standard Library Python has a large and broad library
and prvides rich set of module and functions for rapid
application development.
• GUI Programming Support Graphical user interfaces can be
developed using Python.
• Integrated It can be easily integrated with languages like C,
C++, JAVA etc.

What is Program?
• A program is a sequence of instructions that specifies how to
perform a computation.
• The computation might be something mathematical, such as
solving a system of equations or finding the roots of a
polynomial etc.
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What is debugging?
• Programming errors are called bugs and the process of tracking
them down is called debugging.
Three types of Error
• Syntax Error : it occur when there is problem in programming
syntax.
• Run Time Error : A runtime error is a program error that
occurs while the program is running.
• Semantic Error : Writing invalid program logic that produces
incorrect results when the instructions are executed. The syntax
of the source code may be valid, but the algorithm being
employed is not.

** error is also known as exception

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Value and type
• A value is one of the basic things a program works with, like a
letter or a number.
• The values we have seen so far are 1, 2, and 'Hello, World!'.
• These values belong to different types: 2 is an integer, and
'Hello, World!' is a string, 0.4 is a float etc.
• If you are not sure what type a value has, the interpreter can
tell you the type of value using type() method.
• When you type a large integer, you might be tempted to use
commas between groups of three digits, as in 1,000,000. This
is not a legal integer in Python
a=1,000,000
>>> print(a)
(1, 0, 0)
** very first example of semantic error

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Example to check datatype and long value with python
variable

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Variable
• Variable is a name which is used to refer memory location.
Variable also known as identifier and used to hold value.
• A variable is a name that refers to a value.
• An assignment statement creates new variables and gives them
values.
• If you type an integer with a leading zero, you might get a
confusing error:
>>> zipcode = 02492
SyntaxError: leading zeros in decimal integer literals are not permitted; use an
0o prefix for octal integers

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Variable names and keywords
• Variable names can be a group of both letters and digits, but
they have to begin with a letter or an underscore.
• The underscore character (_) can appear in a name. It is often
used in names with multiple words, such as my_name or
airspeed_of_unladen_swallow.
• Identifier name must not contain any white-space, or special
character (!, @, #, %, ^, &, *).
• Identifier name must not be similar to any keyword defined in
the language.
• Identifier names are case sensitive for example my name, and
MyName is not the same.
• Declare variable name using reserved keyword is not allow.
e.g _name_, _myname123, my_name, hello123, _123name,

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Reserved Keyword in Python

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Statements
• A statement is a unit of code that the Python interpreter can
execute. We have seen two kinds of statements: print and
assignment.
• When you type a statement in interactive mode, the interpreter
executes it and displays the result, if there is one.
• A script usually contains a sequence of statements. If there is
more than one statement, the results appear one at a time as
the statements execute.
Expressions
• An expression is a combination of values, variables, and
operators.
• E.g. x + 17, (1+1)**(5-2), (minute * 100) / 60

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Difference between Statement and Expression

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Order of operations
• When more than one operator appears in an expression, the
order of evaluation depends on the rules of precedence
• PEMDAS is a useful way to remember the rules.
• Parentheses have the highest precedence.
• Exponentiation has the next highest precedence, so 2**1+1 is
3, not 4.
• Multiplication and Division have the same precedence, which
is higher than Addition and Subtraction, which also have the
same precedence. So 2*3-1 is 5, not 4, and 6+4/2 is 8, not 5.
• Operators with the same precedence are evaluated from left to
right. So in the expression degrees / 2 * pi, the division
happens first and the result is multiplied by pi.
• Only assignment operator execute right to left.

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Comment
• Information in a program that is meant for other programmers
(or anyone reading the source code) and has no effect on the
execution of the program.
• # is use for single line comment and ‘’’ ‘’’ or “”” “”” is use for
multiline comment.

Same value to multiple variable.

num1=num2= num3 = 12 //12 assign to all three variable

Different value to multiple variable.

Num1, num2, num3 = 10,20,30
**Please example on next slide

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