Beej's Guide to Python Programming: For Beginners

Intro
	Audience
	Platform and Tools
	Official Homepage and Books For Sale
	Email Policy
	Mirroring
	Note for Translators
	Copyright, Distribution, and Legal
	Dedication
	Publishing Information
What is Programming, Anyway?
	Objectives
	More Terminology Than You Wanted
	What's This Talk About Problem Solving?
	So How To Solve It?
	What is Python?
	Summary
What software will I need?
	Objectives
	What Is All This?
	Installing Python
		Windows
		Mac
		Linux/Unix-likes
	Running IDLE
	Your First Command
	Summary
How do I write a program?
	Objectives
	The Problem That Needs Solving
	Launching your IDE and Opening a File
	Running the Program!
	Exercises
	Summary
Data and Processing Data
	Objective
	Data, Variables, and Math
	Assigning from One Variable to Another
	Your Mental Model of Computation
	User Input
	Data Types
	Converting Between Data Types
	Input Two Numbers and Print the Sum
	Wrapping it Up
	Exercises
	Summary
Flow Control and Looping
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What is Flow Control?
	Boolean Algebra and Expressions
	Boolean Operations in Python
	The Almighty if Statement
	And Now: while Loops!
	Looping: for Loops
	When while and When for?
	Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Strings
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What is a String?
	Creating Strings
	Converting Other Types To Strings and Vice Versa
	String Concatenation with +
	Midterm Challenge
	Getting Individual Characters From Strings
	Slices
	Midterm Challenge
	Interlude: Mutable versus Immutable Types
	for-loops with Strings
	String Functions and Methods
	Formatted Output with F-Strings
		.format() Method
		% printf Operator
	Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Lists
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What Are Lists?
	List Assignments
	for and Lists—Powerful Stuff
	for and enumerate()
	Midterm: Doubling The Values
	Built-in Functions for Lists
	What Good Are They?
	Midterm Challenge
	Building New Lists, Repeating and Empty
	List Comprehensions
	Lists of Lists
	Chapter Project Implementation
	Exercises
	Summary
Dictionaries
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What are Dictionaries?
	Initializing a Dictionary
	Speed Demon
	Does this dict have this key?
	Iterating over Dictionaries
	Common Built-in Dictionary Functionality
	Dictionary Comprehensions
	Dictionaries of Dictionaries
	Dictionaries are Mutable
	The Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Functions
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What Are Functions?
	Using Built-In Functions
	Arguments
	Writing Your Own Functions
	Multiple Return Values
	What Makes a Good Function
	Positional Arguments versus Keyword Arguments
	Interlude: Evaluation Strategies
	The Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Classes and Objects
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What Problem Are We Even Trying To Solve?
	What are Classes and Objects?
	Making Different StarShips
	Attributes
	Using Attributes
	More on Methods
	Pretty Printing
	Objects are Mutable
	Objects and None
	Testing for Attributes
	Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Importing Modules
	Objective
	Chapter Project Specification
	What and Why of Modules
	Using a Module
	Command Line Arguments
	Printing Calendars
	Importing Specific Attributes
	Learning All The Modules
	Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Reading Files
	Objective
	Project
	What are Files, Anyway?
	Reading Files, The Classic Way
	Opening Files with with
	Reading Data a Line at a Time
	Writing files
	Chapter Project
	Exercises
	Summary
Exceptions
	Objective
	Project
	Errors in Programs
	Classic Error Handling
	Error Handling with Exceptions
	Catching Exceptions
	Catching Multiple Exceptions
	Catching Multiple Exceptions II
	Getting More Exception Information
	Catching All Exceptions
	Finally finally
	What Else? else!
	Exception Objects
	Raising Exceptions
	Re-raising Exceptions
	Project Implementation
	Exercises
	Summary
Appendix A: Basic Math for Programmers
	Arithmetic
	Division in Python
	Modulo, AKA Remainder
	Negative numbers
	Absolute Value
	The Power of Exponents
	Parentheses
	Square root
	Factorial
	Scientific notation
	Logarithms
	Rounding
	Large Numbers
Appendix B: The REPL
	What is the REPL?
	Calculator
	Getting Help
	dir()—Quick and Dirty Help
	Getting out of the REPL
Appendix C: Assignment Behavior
	How This Relates To Functions
	Is Any of This True?
	Python Compiler Optimizations
	Internment
Appendix D: Number Bases
	How to Count like a Boss
	Number Bases
	Hexadecimal, Base 16
	Specifying the Number Base in Python
Accelerating Beyond IDLE
	Objectives
	What with the What Now?
	The Terminal
		The Shell
		Windows Terminals and Shells
		Windows gitbash
		Windows WSL
		Mac
		Linux/Unix-likes
	Installing an IDE
		Windows VS Code
		Mac
		Linux and other Unix-likes
	Running VS Code
	Using a Barebones Editor and Terminal
		Start with the Terminal
	Launching Your Code Editor
	Running the Program!
	Exercises
	Summary