PYTHON is a scripting language that we will use begin learning to program. It is as easy to use as any programming language and easier than most. There are many possible uses for PYTHON scripts but there are some things that we will not use PYTHON for. We will talk more about these issues in class.
One advantage that PYTHON has over many programming languages is that it is free. Everything that you need to successfully complete this course is available for free download either from this website or from the Internet. Your first job will be to set up your system.
There are many versions of PYTHON. There is an active community that keeps the language as current and as bug-free as possible. As of this writing (see date below) the current version of PYTHON is 2.5. There is also a "portable" version available. This is a version of PYTHON 2.5 that will run from a thumb drive. There are links below for the standard version and the portable version. You may see a version listed as a BETA version. This is a version that is still being tested. Normally you would not want to download this version. Sometimes you will note that one version of PYTHON may run better on your system than others. For the purposes of this course, you may download any version from 2.2. Note that Portable PYTHON is listed as version 1.0. It is version 1.0 of version 2.5 that runs off a thumb drive.
You will need a text editor to edit PYTHON scripts. PYTHON comes with an editor called IDLE. It is certainly useable but I think that there may be bugs in it. I have noticed that there are times that IDLE says that a script hs errors when running the script from PYTHON's command line does not raise any errors. PYTHON scripts can also be run from other editors. A number of other editors that I have tried do not show IDLE's behavior. I suggest that you download and install a seperate text editor. In a pinch, NOTEPAD will do. Portable PYTHON comes with a very good editor called SCITE. If you use this version of PYTHON, you do not need to download a seperate editor. You can also download SCITE from the link below.
In order to help you learn some of the basic concepts of programming, I have written some notes for you. You can access them here.
| The official PYTHON website | The Portable PYTHON download page. As of 3/24/09, Rowan University hosts a mirrir site for Portable PYTHON distribution. Please note that there are three different versions available. Although version 3.01 is the newest, there are fewer packages available for it than the other versions. Please note that there will have to be changes to your code when you move from version 2.x to version 3.x |
| The Scintilla website for the sciTE editor | TEXTPAD is another good text editor that works well with PYTHON |
| PSPad is an editor with many, many features. Please note that it can be run from a thumb drive. When it is used with the PortableApps.com menu, it installs two entries. One says "notepad Application" but does not seem to do anything. It says it cannot find PSPad but there is a menu entry for PSPad which runs the program. | Here is the textbook that we will use. |
| Here are some sample scripts. More will be added as time goes by. | PYzine
An online PYTHON magazine. Some articles contain code examples. |
| Program development files | Documentation pages for pyGame, which allows you to make games in PYTHON. |