Hello World!

by Sande, Warren

• ISBN13: 9781933988498
• ISBN10: 1933988495
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-01
• Publisher: Manning Pubns Co

Summary

Your computer won't respond when you yell at it, so why not talk to it in its own language? If you learn to program, you can do just that. You'll be able to do really cool things quickly, and even make your own games! Programming is fun!

Author Biography

Warren Sande is an Electronic Systems Engineer who uses Python (and other languages) in his work, and also uses it to help teach his son about computers and programming. He holds a degree in Electronic Systems Engineering from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan as well as a Diploma in Communication Arts, specializing in Broadcasting, from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He has taught introductory software courses to computer novices.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xix
About this book	p. xxi
Getting Started	p. 1
Installing Python	p. 1
Starting Python with IDLE	p. 2
Instructions, please	p. 3
Interacting with Python	p. 5
Time to program	p. 7
Running your first program	p. 8
If something goes wrong	p. 9
Your second program	p. 11
Remember This-Memory and Variables	p. 14
Input, processing, output	p. 14
Names	p. 16
What's in a name?	p. 20
Numbers and strings	p. 21
How "variable" are they?	p. 22
The new me	p. 23
Basic Math	p. 26
The four basic operations	p. 27
Operators	p. 28
Order of operations	p. 29
Two more operators	p. 30
Really big and really small	p. 33
Types of Data	p. 38
Changing types	p. 38
Getting more information: type()	p. 41
Type-conversion errors	p. 42
Using type conversions	p. 42
Input	p. 44
raw_input ()	p. 45
The print command and the comma	p. 45
Inputting numbers	p. 47
Input from the Web	p. 49
GUIs-Graphical User Interfaces	p. 52
What's a GUI?	p. 52
Our first GUI	p. 53
GUI input	p. 54
Pick your flavor	p. 55
The number-guessing game ... again	p. 59
Other GUI pieces	p. 60
Decisions, Decisions	p. 62
Testing, testing	p. 62
Indenting	p. 65
Am I seeing double?	p. 65
Other kinds of tests	p. 66
What happens if the test is false?	p. 67
Testing for more than one condition	p. 69
Using "and"	p. 69
Using "or"	p. 70
Using "not"	p. 70
Loop the Loop	p. 74
Counting loops	p. 75
Using a counting loop	p. 77
A shortcut-range ()	p. 78
A matter of style-loop variable names	p. 80
Counting by steps	p. 82
Counting without numbers	p. 84
While we're on the subject ...	p. 84
Bailing out of a loop-break and continue	p. 85
Just for You-Comments	p. 89
Adding comments	p. 89
Single-line comments	p. 90
End-of-line comments	p. 90
Multiline comments	p. 90
Commenting style	p. 91
Commenting out	p. 92
Game Time	p. 94
Skier	p. 94
Nested and Variable Loops	p. 99
Nested loops	p. 99
Variable loops	p. 101
Variable nested loops	p. 102
Even more variable nested loops	p. 103
Using nested loops	p. 105
Collecting Things Together-Lists	p. 112
What's a list?	p. 112
Creating a list	p. 113
Adding things to a list	p. 113
What's the dot?	p. 114
Lists can hold anything	p. 114
Getting items from a list	p. 115
"Slicing" a list	p. 116
Modifying items	p. 118
Other ways of adding to a list	p. 118
Deleting from a list	p. 120
Searching a list	p. 121
Looping through a list	p. 122
Sorting lists	p. 123
Mutable and immutable	p. 126
Lists of lists: tables of data	p. 126
Functions	p. 131
Functions-the building blocks	p. 131
Calling a function	p. 133
Passing arguments to a function	p. 134
Functions with more than one argument	p. 137
Functions that return a value	p. 139
Variable scope	p. 140
Forcing a global	p. 143
A bit of advice on naming variables	p. 144
Objects	p. 146
Objects in the real world	p. 147
Objects in Python	p. 147
Object = attributes + methods	p. 148
What's the dot?	p. 149
Creating objects	p. 149
An example class-HotDog	p. 154
Hiding the data	p. 159
Polymorphism and inheritance	p. 159
Thinking ahead	p. 162
Modules	p. 164
What's a module?	p. 164
Why use modules?	p. 164
Buckets of blocks	p. 165
How do we create modules?	p. 165
How do we use modules?	p. 166
Namespaces	p. 167
Standard modules	p. 170
Graphics	p. 174
Getting some help-Pygame	p. 174
A Pygame window	p. 175
Drawing in the window	p. 178
Individual pixels	p. 186
Images	p. 190
Let's get moving!	p. 192
Animation	p. 193
Smoother animation	p. 194
Bouncing the ball	p. 196
Wrapping the ball	p. 198
Sprites and Collision Detection	p. 202
Sprites	p. 202
Bump! Collision detection	p. 208
Counting time	p. 212
A New Kind of Input-Events	p. 217
Events	p. 217
Keyboard events	p. 219
Mouse events	p. 223
Timer events	p. 225
Time for another game-PyPong	p. 227
Sound	p. 239
More help from Pygame-mixer	p. 239
Making sounds versus playing sounds	p. 240
Playing sounds	p. 240
Controlling volume	p. 243
Repeating music	p. 245
Adding sounds to PyPong	p. 245
More wacky sounds	p. 246
Adding music to PyPong	p. 250
More GUIs	p. 254
Working with PythonCard	p. 254
Components	p. 255
Making our GUI do something	p. 258
The return of event handlers	p. 259
Moving the button	p. 260
More useful GUIs	p. 260
TempGUI	p. 261
What's on the menu?	p. 266
Print Formatting and Strings	p. 273
New lines	p. 274
Horizontal spacing-tabs	p. 275
Inserting variables in strings	p. 277
Number formatting	p. 278
Strings 'n' things	p. 282
File Input and Output	p. 290
What's a file?	p. 291
Filenames	p. 291
File locations	p. 292
Opening a file	p. 296
Reading a file	p. 297
Text files and binary files	p. 299
Writing to a file	p. 300
Saving your stuff in files: pickle	p. 303
Game time again-Hangman	p. 305
Take a Chance-Randomness	p. 313
What's randomness?	p. 313
Rolling the dice	p. 314
Creating a deck of cards	p. 319
Crazy Eights	p. 323
Computer Simulations	p. 336
Modeling the real world	p. 336
Lunar Lander	p. 337
Keeping time	p. 342
Time objects	p. 343
Saving time to a file	p. 347
Virtual Pet	p. 349
What's Next?	p. 358
General programming	p. 358
Python	p. 359
Game programming and Pygame	p. 359
Other Python stuff	p. 360
Look around	p. 362
Variable Naming Rules	p. 363
Answers to Self-Test Questions	p. 365
Getting Started	p. 365
Remember This-Memory and Variables	p. 366
Basic Math	p. 367
Types of Data	p. 368
Input	p. 369
GUIs-Graphical User Interfaces	p. 371
Decisions, Decisions	p. 372
Loop the Loop	p. 374
Just for You-Comments	p. 375
Game Time	p. 376
Nested and Variable Loops	p. 376
Collecting Things Together-Lists	p. 377
Functions	p. 379
Objects	p. 380
Modules	p. 382
Graphics	p. 383
Sprites and Collision Detection	p. 385
A New Kind of Input-Events	p. 385
Sound	p. 386
More GUIs	p. 386
Print Formatting and Strings	p. 387
File Input and Output	p. 388
Take a Chance-Randomness	p. 390
Computer Simulations	p. 391
Index	p. 393
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