The Ultimate Python Programming Tutorial

Install python on windows by downloading python.org installers for python 2.7 and python 3, uninstall old versions if needed, and run a hello world test in the command prompt.

Install Python on Macintosh by visiting python.org, downloading the Macintosh 64-bit package, and following the installer. Then use the terminal to run a hello world script to verify installation.

Learn how to enter and run a Python program on Windows using the command prompt. Create a hello world script with a .py extension, then run it via Python interpreter.

Learn to run python programs on a mac using terminal and interactive shell; edit with pico, save as hellow.py, and run a for loop that prints hello world ten times.

Explore variations of printing hello world in Python by using multiple print statements, the end parameter, concatenation, and special characters like tab and newline to control output.

Explore the fundamentals of Python—expressions, statements, and variables—before data types, using the interactive shell to evaluate numbers, strings, and booleans, and demonstrating assignment and concatenation.

Learn to work with numbers in Python, including integers, floating points, hex, octal, and binary, using operators, precedence, and built-in math and random functions like pow and randint.

Learn how to work with strings in Python by using single or double quotes, concatenation with the plus sign, indexing, slicing, split, and strip and rstrip.

Explore the boolean data type, where true and false arise from relational and logical operators, see true stored as 1 and false as 0, e.g., 2 equals 2 yields true.

Explore the list data structure in Python by creating empty and non-empty lists, accessing elements with indexing, slicing, measuring length, and using concatenation, replication, and nested sub-lists.

Learn how Python dictionaries work as key-value stores, create an empty dict, build a phone list with names and extensions, retrieve values by key, and access keys and values.

Explore tuples, the immutable, parentheses-delimited data structure similar to lists. Learn to create, index, slice, concatenate, and multiply tuples, and use them as dictionary keys.

Learn how to create and manipulate a Python list of student names and scores, handle type errors, convert integers to strings, and introduce dictionaries for efficient data retrieval.

The exercise demonstrates using a dictionary to store student names and grades as key-value pairs, enabling retrieval by name and access to keys and values for calculations.

Explore python input and output by using the print function to display variables, literals, and data structures, and learn basic formatting and print redirection to files.

Explore redirecting Python print output from the screen to a file by redefining sys.standard out or using the double greater-than sign, with practical examples.

Master getting user input with the raw_input function in an interactive shell, converting strings to int or float and handling concatenation via string conversion.

Create a python program, thanks.py, that builds a thank-you note by collecting the gift giver's name, present, age, and signer name with raw_input and int conversion, then prints a message.

Master relational operators in Python, including equals, greater than, less than, and not equal, as binary operators that return boolean values for numbers and strings.

Explore how the Python logical operators and, or, and not control boolean logic using truth tables and practical examples like payroll conditions and password checks.

Learn the simple if statement in Python, using a colon and indentation for true relational expressions, illustrated with a payroll example including overtime (time and a half).

Explore replacing two if statements with a single if-else for payroll calculations, and see how true or false conditions select the corresponding code block, as introduced with if-l-if.

Demonstrate the Python if-elif syntax with a grading scale, converting numeric scores to letter grades A to F, using an optional else and a sample program.

Create a python program that plays a simple guessing game, using a Watson answer and three tries with raw input and nested if statements.

Demonstrates implementing if-elif decision logic in Python to suggest resort activities from temperature input, using temperature thresholds for swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, and sitting by the fire.

Learn how the while loop in Python uses a relational expression to control execution, build count controlled and event controlled loops, and print numbers 1 through 10 with an increment.

Explore count-controlled while loops in Python through two examples: summing the first ten integers and calculating simple interest on a savings balance, with loop control and comments.

Explore event-controlled while loops that stop on a sentinel value like negative one, accumulate grades to a total, count entries, and compute the average while priming the pump.

Learn to use the continue statement in a while loop to skip remaining body statements and restart at the top when a condition holds, illustrated with a Python quotient example.

Learn how the break statement prematurely exits a while loop when a sentinel value is reached. See an averaging example using negative one, with input, total, count, and average.

Write data to a text file with open in write mode and close to save. Read data back in from the file in the next lesson.

Read data from grades.text in Python, open for reading, use read line to fetch grades, convert to int, and loop until end to compute the average.

Rewrite the guessing game using a while loop instead of nested if statements, with three tries and the answer Watson, incrementing tries and using break to end the loop.

build a simple python calculator that takes two operands and an operator, performs +, -, *, or /, and quits on q using a while loop.

For loops in Python iterate over data structures using an iterator to retrieve values and perform actions, with examples that print numbers and compute sum, highlighting advantages over while loops.

Explore how to use for-loops to process strings and count vowels, with examples that print each letter and tally vowels in a sentence.

Explore processing lists with for loops and indexing, printing elements, using range to access zero-based indices, and selecting partial sequences to demonstrate flexible iteration.

Explore for loops with tuples by summing a numeric tuple and identifying the longest word in a words tuple, using indexing and len to track the maximum.

Learn to use for loops with dictionaries to iterate keys and retrieve values, such as names and extensions, and print each entry by its key.

master for loops to process a text file, replacing longer while-loop code, by iterating over lines, printing with controlled line endings, and computing a grades average from grades.txt.

Learn to compute factorials iteratively using a for-loop, with user input and a running product, and compare this approach to the recursive solution discussed later in the course.

Build a histogram of grades from the grades.text file using nested for loops that convert five points into one asterisk, printing each bar with its corresponding grade.

Explore how iterators traverse sequences like lists, dictionaries, tuples, and files, using a for loop to illustrate internal traversal and how an iterator moves through elements.

Explore how to create explicit iterators for lists and files using iter and next. See how an implicit for loop handles stop iteration and how file objects behave as iterators.

Explore iterators and dictionaries in Python by building a simple dictioniter.py and using a keys-based iterator to access keys and values.

Learn how to create and use iterators for Python sequence types, including ranges, tuples, and directory listings via os.popen, and iterate with explicit iterators and for loops.

Demonstrates iterating over a square defined as a tuple of point tuples, printing each x,y coordinate with next, and discusses stop iteration and explicit-iterator handling.

Explore how list comprehensions replace two-statement for loops to curve grades by adding five points. See how a single expression performs the same task and lowercases words in Python.

Learn to use list comprehensions with files to save coding time by reading a grades text file, stripping newline characters, and storing results in a list in one line.

Explore practical list comprehension techniques by extracting even numbers from a range and computing word lengths from a sentence using split, tuples, and printing results.