Gray Hat Hacking, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

Python Survival Skills

Python is a popular interpreted object-oriented programming language similar to Perl. Hacking tools—and many other applications—use it because it is a breeze to learn and use, is quite powerful, and has a clear syntax that makes it easy to read. (Actually, those are the reasons we like it...hacking tools may use it for very different reasons.) This introduction will cover only the bare minimum you’ll need to understand. You’ll almost surely want to know more, and for that you can check out one of the many good books dedicated to Python or the extensive documentation at www.python.org.

Getting Python

We’re going to blow past the usual architecture diagrams and design goals spiel and tell you to just go download the version ...