Adding Things Up - Python

Known for its power, flexibility and elegance - much like its namesake - Python is one of the most interesting programming languages around. In this introductory tutorial, find out how learning Python will earn you respect, affection and bags of money. Oh yeah...you might also learn a little bit about the origins, features and syntactical rules of the language.

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By: Vikram Vaswani, (c) Melonfire

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May 29, 2001

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Here's another program, this one performing an arithmetic operation on a variable and displaying the result.


>>> num1 = 10
>>> num2 = 5
>>> num3 = num1 + num2
>>> num3
15
>>>

Note that Python also allows you to display the value of a variable (in the command line interpreter only) by stating the variable name without a preceding print() function call.

Finally, Python also allows you to simultaneously assign a value to multiple variables - check it out.


>>> huey = dewey = louie = 75
>>> dewey
75
>>> louie
75
>>>

And that's about it for this introduction to Python. In this article, I've provided a brief history of Python, and explained some of the features which make it so popular among discerning developers. I've also discussed the two methods available to run a Python program, demonstrated the print() function, and offered some insight into the rules governing Python variables.

In the next article, I'll be delving deeper into Python's data structures and built-in objects - numbers and - together with a closer look at the various arithmetic and comparison operators. See you then!