
- •Introduction
- •Introduction - What, Why, Who etc.
- •Why am I writing this?
- •What will I cover
- •Who should read it?
- •Why Python?
- •Other resources
- •Concepts
- •What do I need?
- •Generally
- •Python
- •QBASIC
- •What is Programming?
- •Back to BASICs
- •Let me say that again
- •A little history
- •The common features of all programs
- •Let's clear up some terminology
- •The structure of a program
- •Batch programs
- •Event driven programs
- •Getting Started
- •A word about error messages
- •The Basics
- •Simple Sequences
- •>>> print 'Hello there!'
- •>>>print 6 + 5
- •>>>print 'The total is: ', 23+45
- •>>>import sys
- •>>>sys.exit()
- •Using Tcl
- •And BASIC too...
- •The Raw Materials
- •Introduction
- •Data
- •Variables
- •Primitive Data Types
- •Character Strings
- •String Operators
- •String operators
- •BASIC String Variables
- •Tcl Strings
- •Integers
- •Arithmetic Operators
- •Arithmetic and Bitwise Operators
- •BASIC Integers
- •Tcl Numbers
- •Real Numbers
- •Complex or Imaginary Numbers
- •Boolean Values - True and False
- •Boolean (or Logical) Operators
- •Collections
- •Python Collections
- •List
- •List operations
- •Tcl Lists
- •Tuple
- •Dictionary or Hash
- •Other Collection Types
- •Array or Vector
- •Stack
- •Queue
- •Files
- •Dates and Times
- •Complex/User Defined
- •Accessing Complex Types
- •User Defined Operators
- •Python Specific Operators
- •More information on the Address example
- •More Sequences and Other Things
- •The joy of being IDLE
- •A quick comment
- •Sequences using variables
- •Order matters
- •A Multiplication Table
- •Looping - Or the art of repeating oneself!
- •FOR Loops
- •Here's the same loop in BASIC:
- •WHILE Loops
- •More Flexible Loops
- •Looping the loop
- •Other loops
- •Coding Style
- •Comments
- •Version history information
- •Commenting out redundant code
- •Documentation strings
- •Indentation
- •Variable Names
- •Modular Programming
- •Conversing with the user
- •>>> print raw_input("Type something: ")
- •BASIC INPUT
- •Reading input in Tcl
- •A word about stdin and stdout
- •Command Line Parameters
- •Tcl's Command line
- •And BASIC
- •Decisions, Decisions
- •The if statement
- •Boolean Expressions
- •Tcl branches
- •Case statements
- •Modular Programming
- •What's a Module?
- •Using Functions
- •BASIC: MID$(str$,n,m)
- •BASIC: ENVIRON$(str$)
- •Tcl: llength L
- •Python: pow(x,y)
- •Python: dir(m)
- •Using Modules
- •Other modules and what they contain
- •Tcl Functions
- •A Word of Caution
- •Creating our own modules
- •Python Modules
- •Modules in BASIC and Tcl
- •Handling Files and Text
- •Files - Input and Output
- •Counting Words
- •BASIC and Tcl
- •BASIC Version
- •Tcl Version
- •Handling Errors
- •The Traditional Way
- •The Exceptional Way
- •Generating Errors
- •Tcl's Error Mechanism
- •BASIC Error Handling
- •Advanced Topics
- •Recursion
- •Note: This is a fairly advanced topic and for most applications you don't need to know anything about it. Occasionally, it is so useful that it is invaluable, so I present it here for your study. Just don't panic if it doesn't make sense stright away.
- •What is it?
- •Recursing over lists
- •Object Oriented Programming
- •What is it?
- •Data and Function - together
- •Defining Classes
- •Using Classes
- •Same thing, Different thing
- •Inheritance
- •The BankAccount class
- •The InterestAccount class
- •The ChargingAccount class
- •Testing our system
- •Namespaces
- •Introduction
- •Python's approach
- •And BASIC too
- •Event Driven Programming
- •Simulating an Event Loop
- •A GUI program
- •GUI Programming with Tkinter
- •GUI principles
- •A Tour of Some Common Widgets
- •>>> F = Frame(top)
- •>>>F.pack()
- •>>>lHello = Label(F, text="Hello world")
- •>>>lHello.pack()
- •>>> lHello.configure(text="Goodbye")
- •>>> lHello['text'] = "Hello again"
- •>>> F.master.title("Hello")
- •>>> bQuit = Button(F, text="Quit", command=F.quit)
- •>>>bQuit.pack()
- •>>>top.mainloop()
- •Exploring Layout
- •Controlling Appearance using Frames and the Packer
- •Adding more widgets
- •Binding events - from widgets to code
- •A Short Message
- •The Tcl view
- •Wrapping Applications as Objects
- •An alternative - wxPython
- •Functional Programming
- •What is Functional Programming?
- •How does Python do it?
- •map(aFunction, aSequence)
- •filter(aFunction, aSequence)
- •reduce(aFunction, aSequence)
- •lambda
- •Other constructs
- •Short Circuit evaluation
- •Conclusions
- •Other resources
- •Conclusions
- •A Case Study
- •Counting lines, words and characters
- •Counting sentences instead of lines
- •Turning it into a module
- •getCharGroups()
- •getPunctuation()
- •The final grammar module
- •Classes and objects
- •Text Document
- •HTML Document
- •Adding a GUI
- •Refactoring the Document Class
- •Designing a GUI
- •References
- •Books to read
- •Python
- •BASIC
- •General Programming
- •Object Oriented Programming
- •Other books worth reading are:
- •Web sites to visit
- •Languages
- •Python
- •BASIC
- •Other languages of interest
- •Programming in General
- •Object Oriented Programming
- •Projects to try
- •Topics for further study

More information on the Address example
Although, as I said earlier, the details of this example are explained later, some readers have found difficulty getting the example to work. This note gives a line by line explanation of the Python code:
The complete code for the example looks like this:
>>> class Address:
... def __init__(self, Hs, St, Town, Zip):
... self.HsNumber = Hs
... self.Street = St
... self.Town = Town
... self.Zip_Code = Zip
...
>>>Addr = Address(7,"High St","Anytown","123 456")
>>>print Addr.HsNumber, Addr.Street
Here is the explanation:
>>> class Address:
The class statement tells Python that we are about to define a new type called, in this case, Address. The colon indicates that any indented lines following will be part of the class definition. The definition will end at the next unindented line. If you are using IDLE you should find that the editor has indented the next line for you, if working at a command line Python prompt in an MS DOS window then you will need to manually indent the lines as shown. Python doesn't care how much you indent by, just so long as it is consistent.
... def __init__(self, Hs, St, Town, Zip):
The first item within our class is what is known as a method definition. This method is called __init__ and is a special operation performed by Python when we create an instance of our new class, we'll see that shortly. The colon, as before, simply tells Python that the next set of indented lines will be the actual definition of the method.
... self.HsNumber = Hs
This line plus the next three, all assign values to the internal fields of our object. They are indented from the def statement to tell Python that they constitute the actual definition of the __init__ operation.The blank line tells the Python interpreter that the class definition is finished so that we get the >>> prompt back.
>>> Addr = Address(7,"High St","Anytown","123 456")
This creates a new instance of our Address type and Python uses the __init__ operation defined above to assign the values we provide to the internal fields. The instance is assigned to the Addr variable just like an instance of any other data type would be.
>>> print Addr.HsNumber, Addr.Street
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Now we print out the values of two of the internal fields using the dot operator to access them.
As I said we cover all of this in more detail later in the tutorial. The key point to take away is that Python allows us to create our own data types and use them pretty much like the built in ones.
Points to remember
•Data comes in many types and the operations you can successfully perform will depend on the type of data you are using.
•Simple data types include character strings, numbers, Boolean or 'truth' values.
•Complex data types include collections, files, dates and user defined data types.
•There are many operators in every programming language and part of learning a new language is becoming familiar with both its data types and the operators available for those types.
•The same operator (e.g. addition) may be available for different types, but the results may not be identical, or even apparently related!
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