Introduction to Python

Python is a general-purpose programming language known for clean, readable syntax, it uses indentation instead of curly braces to mark blocks of code, which forces consistently formatted code across every project and every developer who touches it.

Example: the simplest possible program

print("Hello, world!")

print() outputs a value. Compare this single line to the equivalent in a language like Java or C#, which needs a whole class and method wrapper just to print one line, Python's minimal ceremony is a big part of why it's such a common first language, and why it's also popular for quick scripts and data work where you want to focus on the actual problem, not boilerplate.

These examples are shown read-only here (no in-browser Python execution), with the expected output shown below each one so you can follow along without needing Python installed yet.