Python Course

Python 2 Tutorial

Help Needed

This website is free of annoying ads. We want to keep it like this. You can help with your donation:

The need for donations

Python

In Greek mythology, Python is the name of a a huge serpent and sometimes a dragon. Python had been killed by the god Apollo at Delphi. Python was created out of the slime and mud left after the great flood. He was appointed by Gaia (Mother Earth) to guard the oracle of Delphi, known as Pytho.
The programming language Python has not been created out of slime and mud but out of the programming language ABC. It has been devised by a Dutch programmer, named Guido van Rossum, in Amsterdam.

Origins of Python

Guido van Rossum wrote the following about the origins of Python in a foreword for the book "Programming Python" by Mark Lutz in 1996:
"Over six years ago, in December 1989, I was looking for a "hobby" programming project that would keep me occupied during the week around Christmas. My office (a government-run research lab in Amsterdam) would be closed, but I had a home computer, and not much else on my hands. I decided to write an interpreter for the new scripting language I had been thinking about lately: a descendant of ABC that would appeal to Unix/C hackers. I chose Python as a working title for the project, being in a slightly irreverent mood (and a big fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus)."

Help Needed

This website is free of annoying ads. We want to keep it like this. You can help with your donation:

The need for donations


Bernd Klein on Facebook



Search this website:

This topic in German / Deutsche Übersetzung: Strukturierung und Blöcke

Python 2.7

This tutorial deals with Python Version 2.7
This chapter from our course is available in a version for Python3: Structuring with Indentation

Classroom Training Courses

This website contains a free and extensive online tutorial by Bernd Klein, using material from his classroom Python training courses.

If you are interested in an instructor-led classroom training course, you may have a look at the Python classes
by Bernd Klein at Bodenseo. © kabliczech - Fotolia.com

Quote of the Day:

"A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen. " (Paul Graham)

---

If you have the choice working with Python 2 or Python 3, we recomend to switch to Python 3! You can read our Python Tutorial to see what the differences are.

Help Needed

This website is free of annoying ads. We want to keep it like this. You can help with your donation:

The need for donations

Data Protection Declaration

Data Protection Declaration

Structuring with Indentation

Most programming languages use certain characters or keywords to group statements:

• begin ... end
• do ... done
• { ... }
• if ... fi

Python uses a different principle. Programs get structured through indentation, this means that code blocks are defined by their indentation. Okay that's what we expect from any program code, isn't it? Yes, but in the case of Python it's a language requirement not a matter of style. This principle makes it easier to read and understand other people's Python code.

So, how does it work? All statements with the same distance to the right belong to the same block of code, i.e. the statements within a block line up vertically. The block ends at a line less indented or the end of the file. If a block has to be more deeply nested, it is simply indented further to the right.

A statement can be continued on the next line with the continuation character "\".