This video shows you how to download Python and also talks a bit about what a
program is. Programs are everywhere on your computer
and on the internet. Every time you use a web browser, play a
computer game or write a text message on your cell phone, you're using a program.
Even your operating system, such as OS10, Linux or Windows is a program.
A program is just a set of instructions. We say programs are run or executed.
Program, such as your operating system, run on hardware, like a cell phone, or
your laptop, or a tablet. But programs can also be run by other
programs. This is what happens when you play a game
in a web browser. Your web browser knows how to run programs
written in a programming language called Java script.
This webpage on wikipedia lists all the programming languages that anyone has ever
bothered to enter here, and there are hundreds of them.
You've probably heard of some of the programming languages.
We've heard a lot of them but certainly nowhere near all of them and we doubt that
anybody knows all the programming languages listed here.
So, Python is a programming language, one of many.
In order to learn Python programs, you need to download a program that
understands that language much like your browser understands Javascript.
In order to work through this course, you will need to download this program from
python.org. There are two main versions of Python,
Python two and Python three. We're going to use Python three.
So, go ahead and click on Quick Links, and this is the download page for Python
three, the current version. If you use Linux, you can use your package
manager to install Python three. If you use Windows, this link is
appropriate. If you use OS ten, one of the recent
versions, at least, then this is the appropriate link to click.
If you use a Mac, you may need to install something called TickleTK in order to run
the, the program we use to write python programs.
So, let's just scroll down to the bottom here, if you're a Mac user click on this
link, and then scroll down and download Active TCLE.5, .12 or whatever the newest
version is. You are going to have to go to the active
state website and then just click this big blue download button in order to get that.
To write our Python programs we are going to use a program called Idle named after
Eric Idle of Monty Python it will comes with Python.
Just double click on the icon and hopefully you see a window that looks like
Jennifer CampbellAssociate Professor, Teaching Stream
Paul GriesAssociate Professor, Teaching Stream
