Section Notes

Introduction to Python programming language:

• Python is a high-level, interpreted, general-purpose programming language.

• Its design emphasises code readability through the use of significant indentation.
• Python is dynamically typed and garbage-collected.
• A high-level programming language is one that abstracts the details of the computer.
• When writing a program using any programming language, all code written is converted into
machine code, which is binary 0s and 1s.
• However, for programmers, writing a program using machine code is extremely difficult since a
computer's processor can only process machine code.
• Programmers who used to code in machine code did not use 0s and 1s.
• Instead, they wrote code in a more readable format, such as decimal, octal, or hexadecimal.
• This code was then translated into an internal format by a program called a loader.
• Back in the early days, programming a computer using machine code was quite difficult.
• To reduce this difficulty, assembly language was introduced, which provided one abstraction
level on top of machine code.
• Unlike binary code, assembly code had some human-readable symbols, numerics, strings, etc.
• In assembly code, we had to directly work with hardware features of the processor, i.e., its
registers.
• Writing code in assembly language was still difficult, so another layer of abstraction was added
on top of it.
• A more human-readable language, like the C programming language, was introduced to make
coding easier.

What is a general purpose programming language?

A general-purpose programming language is a language that can be used to develop software for a wide
range of application domains.

• Python is a GPL that can be used to write desktop software, web applications, data science, ML,
etc.
• In contrast to general-purpose programming languages, we also have domain-specific
programming languages, such as SQL.
• DSLs are used within a specific area, such as SQL, which can only be used for querying relational
databases and nothing else.

Emphasises code readability

Code readability refers to how easy it is for a human to read and comprehend code.
• Python is a programming language that places special importance on code readability and is one
of the most readable programming languages.
• Code readability is important because if code is readable, more people will be able to use it and
it will be easier to maintain.
• Another reason why code readability is important is that as a programmer, you will spend most
of your time reading, understanding, reusing, and modifying existing source code.

Uses significant indentation

Indentation refers to having space at the beginning of a line of code.

• Indentation makes code more readable, but in programming languages like C, C++, and Java,
indentation is only used for code readability and formatting.
• In Python, indentation is part of the syntax and is used to indicate a block of code.
• For example, in Java, we use curly braces to represent a block of code, whereas in Python, we
use indentation, i.e., spaces to indicate a block of code.

Python is dynamically typed

In programming languages like C, when you declare a variable, you also set the type for that variable,
and the type of that variable cannot be changed during execution.

• In Python, you do not have to declare the type while creating a variable.
• Due to dynamic typing, a variable can have a different type at different times during execution.
• In dynamic typing, the type of variable is decided at runtime.

Python is garbage collected

Garbage collection is a process of automatic memory management.

• In Python, we do not have to worry about freeing up or reclaiming allocated and unused
memory because it is garbage collected.
• Garbage collection automatically reclaims memory that was allocated by the program but is no
longer in use.
• As programmers, we do not have to manually deallocate memory.
Section Notes

Performing mathematical operations in Python:

To add two numbers:

• 100+20

To subtract two numbers:

• 200-40

To multiply two numbers:

• 45*67

To perform complex mathematical operations:

• 4*6*(28+5)

There are two ways to divide numbers in Python:

• 200/2
Using a single slash will give a float value:
A float is a value that has a decimal point.

To obtain an integer value instead of a float, use "//" instead of "/":

• 200//2
This is called floor division.

Dividing a number by zero will result in a divide by zero error:

• 345/0
Always ensure that you do not divide any number by zero in your program, as it will
result in an error.
When you multiply a float value with an integer value, the result is always in float:
For example, if we write:

• 12.0 * 4
This will give us 36.0 instead of 36.

However, if we write:

• 12*4
It will give us an integer value.

Complex mathematical operations:

An exponent refers to how many times a number is multiplied by itself. For example, 5 is
multiplied by itself 3 times i.e. 5 x 5 x 5, then we can say it is 5 raised to 3. We also call it
5 to the power 3 or 5 raised to 3. Here, 3 is the exponent and 5 is the base.
Examples of Exponent in Python:
We can calculate exponents in Python using the "**" operator. For instance:

To calculate 5 to the power of 3, we write:

• 5**3

To calculate 2 to the power of 4, we write:

• 2**4

We can also use exponents to calculate the square root of a number, for instance:

• 64**(1/2)
Finding Remainder in Division:
When we divide two numbers in Python, we only get the quotient. However, in division,
we have a remainder as well. For example, if we say:

• 21/4
We should get 1 as a remainder. Hence, to specifically get a remainder, we use the
modulus operator "%".

The Modulus Operator:

The modulus operator "%" divides the two numbers and gives us the remainder instead
of the quotient. The modulus operator is specifically useful when we need to check if a
number is odd or even. If any number % 2 gives zero as the remainder, the number is
odd. If it gives 1 as the remainder, the number is even. The modulus operator can also
be used with floating-point values.
Example:

• 456.34%2

Strings in Python:
To create and print a string:

• print('Hello world')
When we enclose anything in single or double quotes, it becomes a string in Python.
While using the Python interactive console, you don't have to use the print statement to
print the string.

You could directly enclose anything inside of single or double quotes and that would be
printed. For example:

• 'hello world'
Hit enter and you will get "hello world" printed. The same could be done using double
quotes as well.
Let's try printing a sentence like "He's a good guy".
When we try doing that, we get an error.
This error occurs because Python thinks that the single quote which we use in the
sentence is not a part of the sentence but instead is a part of the syntax.
Python thinks that the string starts at ' and ends at '.
Hence, to tell Python that ' is a part of a string, we use something called an escape
character which is \ backslash.
To specify that we want to escape a character, we add a backslash before it. In this
case, we want to escape the ' in the sentence and hence we add a \ before it.

• 'He\'s a good guy'

This tells Python that ' is not a part of syntax.

Another way to print the above sentence is by using double quotes instead of single
ones.

• "He's a good guy"

Now here, as we have used double quotes, the single quote is automatically escaped as
Python does not treat it as a part of syntax. It believes that the string starts when we
start " and ends when we add another " and everything in between is a string.

The same could be done with single quotes as well. If we use single quotes to represent
a string, we could use double quotes inside a string. For example:

• 'This is the "only" way to go'

But instead of the above, if you use double quotes for creating strings as well as inside
of a string as well, in that case, we will get an issue. Let's try doing that:

• "This is the "only" way to go"

We need to fix this by using the backslash escape character.
"This is the \"only\" way to go"
Accepting user input:
In some programs, it is necessary to accept input data.
Python provides a function called input() to accomplish this.
Let's try using this function.

• input()
This will prompt us to enter something.

Let's enter some input.

If we enter our name, the output will be the entered value.
However, when we execute the input() function, we may not be sure what the program
expects us to do or what value should be entered. Therefore, we can pass a string
argument to the input() function to prompt the user for input.
For example, we could use:

• input('Enter your name')

After entering the name, it will be displayed.
We can also save this input as a variable for later use in our program, but we will cover
that topic later when we learn about variables.

String operations:
When you enclose anything in single or double quotes, it becomes a string.
For example:

• 'Hello there'

Even a number or an integer becomes a string if it's enclosed in quotes:

• '8'
To check the actual type of a value, you can use the type() function:

• type(8)
• type('8')

String operations include concatenation using the + operator:

• "Hello" + " world"

You can also include spaces inside of the quotes:

• "Hello " + "World"

You can concatenate two numbers as a string:

• "10" + "10"

If you try to add two numbers without quotes:

• 10+10
Python treats them as integer values and performs addition instead of concatenation.

You can also concatenate a string and a number by making the number a string:

• "Hello " + "5"

But if you try to concatenate a string with an integer, you will get an error:

• "Hello" + 5

To multiply a string with a number, you can use the * operator:

• "Hello " * 4
This will output "Hello Hello Hello Hello ".
However, you cannot multiply a string with another string.

Data types in Python:

When we write a program, we need to work with data. This data needs to be stored
somewhere, and hence, to store this data, we use variables.

Let's create a variable and assign it a value:

• a = 200
We have created a variable named "a" and assigned the value 200 to it. The "=" sign is
called a variable assignment.
When we create a variable and assign it a value, we are essentially storing the value into
a memory location.

To print the value of "a", we can use the print() function:

• print(a)

Let's create another variable "b":

• b = 20
However, if you close the window and try accessing the value of "a" and "b", you won't
be able to do so. When we close the interpreter, the value stored in the variable gets
deleted.

The value of a variable can be changed at any instance:

• a = 100
• print(a)
• a = 200
• print(a)
Not just numbers, but you can also store other data types in a variable as well:

Strings:

• name = "John"
• type(name)

Floats:

• a = 3.2
• type(a)

Booleans:

• b = True
• type(b)

Naming Python variables:

You can use long or short variable names in Python, but it is advisable to write readable
variable names so that we can understand what is stored in them. For example, when
writing a program to calculate the area of a circle, it is better to name a variable "radius"
rather than just "r" to save the radius value.
In Python, variables can be of any length and can consist of uppercase letters,
lowercase letters, digits, and underscores. However, the first character of a variable
cannot be a number. Let's take a couple of examples:

• radius = 10. # Allowed

• ra20dius= 20 # Allowed
• 10radius = 30. # Not allowed
• 1radius=20. # Not allowed
• _radius=10. # Allowed
• circle_radius = 10 # Allowed
Another restriction on variable names is that we cannot use Python keywords as
variable names. Keywords are part of the Python programming language itself. For
example, the print() function is a keyword. Let's try using "print" as a variable:

• print = 20
This will result in an error.