It's time to take our first look at a programming language. For our purposes we are going to look at the programming language Python.
Python is an easy to learn language with all of the capabilities necessary to make the most complex of programs.
Programming languages usually have complete references online. A reference manual for a language contains information about syntax (rules that govern how Python is to be read by the computer) and occasionally tutorials on how to install and use the language.
Python's reference documentation can be found HERE.
Any programming language can be written using simple text files, named with proper file extensions. In Python, those files are .py files. But this is not the easiest way to write programs: After creating these files, they must be compiled, which requires another program called a compiler.
Definition: Compiler - A compiler is a piece of computer software that translates code written in one language (like Python) into another language. Usually this is done so that an operating system is able to execute (run) the code.
Computer programmers have developed special software called Integrated Development Environments, or IDE for short, that do much of the work with compilers for you. They also offer a lot of very useful features such as syntax highlighting and code autocomplete.
We will be using a development environment called WingIDE 101 which can be found HERE.
Python Tutorials from the Python Website can be found HERE.