Introduction to Programming With Python

1. What is a program?

When you open a chrome window, or play a game, or click a button on your computer, how does the computer know what to do? Who tells the computer when you click the google chrome icon "hey, open up chrome!"? Everytime you perform an action on your computer, a set of instructions associated with that action are followed by the computer. Every single thing, ranging from pressing a key on your keyboard to playing a game, watching a video, has a set of instructions associated with it that the computer follows. A computer is a dumb machine, and it must be told exactly what to do! A program is the way to do exactly this. It is a set of instructions that the computer follows to perform a certain task

2. How do we Write a Program?

Remember, a computer is a dumb machine. We can't just simply say to a computer in english "whats 3+6". A Computer does not understand instructions written in english. Instead, we actually need to communicate with it in a language that the computer understands. A programming language is thus used to write instructions which a computer can understand. There are many programming languages that you can write instructions in, like Java, C++, JavaScript, Python. We will be learning about python today!

3. Requirements

1. Python: To use python, you must install it first. Find the download here

2. A text editor/IDE of choice: To write python code, we need a text editor or an IDE. PyCharm Community Edition is free and highly recommended!