Learning Python

Learning Python is an introduction to the increasingly popular Python programming language. Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented scripting language. Python is growing in popularity because: it is available on all important platforms - Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Linux, all major UNIX platforms, MacOS, and even the BeOS; it is open-source software, copyrighted but freely available for use, even in commercial applications; its clean object-oriented interface makes it a valuable prototyping tool for C++ programmers; and it works well with all popular windowing toolkits, including MFC, Tk, Mac, X11, and Motif. This book starts with a thorough introduction to the elements of Python: types, operators, statements, classes, functions, modules, and exceptions. By reading the first part of the book, the reader should be able to understand and construct programs in the Python language. In the second part of the book, the authors present more advanced information, demonstrating how Python performs common tasks and presenting real applications and the libraries available for those applications.