skeleton

Book skeleton

This serves as a draft of chapters that should appear in the book

Foreword

• tells why this book was made
• by whom
• what made it possible
• whom is it meant for
• thanks to sphinx, rtfd, etc
• where to find official errata
• where to send corrections

Introduction

• What is Python
• What can it be used for
• What it cannot be used for
• How to pronounce it
• How to install it
• How to use the book
• Explanation of special badges
  • warnings
  • compatibility notices
  • pro tips
  • OS specific sections: same book should work on Windows, Linux, MacOS; these should be explained in OS specific sections.
• "Does the reader need to like Monty Python - while not strictly necessary, it helps."

Chapter 1: First steps

• How to start the Python 3 interpreter
• How to check the version number of the interpreter you're running ^
• How to exit
• How to edit in the interactive interpreter incl. ctrl-c/similar for discarding input
• Understanding syntax errors
• What is a traceback, what parts of it are important, what do they mean.
• Explain how to find out a solution to a traceback using Google
  • Explain how if all else fails, one can ask on Stack Overflow, what parts of traceback are necessary, which can be omitted in a long traceback, how to format a question.
• First actual program: Hello world / My hovercraft is full of eels
• How to write a program in a file
• How to run the program from a file
• How to break a running program
• First programming syntax: while True: print('Hello again') - interactively, and in a file.

Chapter 2: Python as a calculator

• How to enter numbers: integers, floating points, scientific notation
• Explain the operators +, -, *, /, //, %, unary -.
• Precedence, parentheses
• Assigning values to variables - use specific nomenclature: bound to a value
• Variables can be re-bound
• Using variables in calculations
• Writing a function for repeated calculations

Chapter 3: Strings

• What is a string?
• What did Python 3 do to strings and why is everyone afraid of them?

Chapter 4: Basic Data Structures In Python

• What is a data structure?
• What data structures are available in Python?
• What is a list
  • Example using list
• What is a tuple
  • Example using tuple
• What is a set
  • Example using set
• What is a dictionary
  • Example using dictionary