Head First Python, 3rd Edition

Table of Contents (the real thing)

• How to use this Book: Intro

  Your brain on Python. Here you are trying to learn something, while here your brain is, doing you a favor by making sure the learning doesn’t stick. Your brain’s thinking, “Better leave room for more important things, like which wild animals to avoid and whether naked snowboarding is a bad idea.” So how do you trick your brain into thinking that your life depends on knowing how to program in Python?

  • “Who is this book for?”

  • “We know what you’re thinking”

  • “We know what your brain is thinking”

  • “Metacognition: thinking about thinking”

  • “Here’s what WE did:”

  • “Read Me”

  • “Let’s install the latest Python”

  • “Python on its own is not enough”

  • “Configure VS Code to your taste”

  • “Add two required extensions to VS Code”

  • “VS Code’s Python support is state-of-the-art”

  • “The Technical Review Team”

  • “Acknowledgments”

• Chapter 1

  Python starts counting from zero, which should sound familiar.

  In fact, Python has a lot in common with other programming languages. There’s variables, loops, conditionals, functions, and the like. In this, our opening chapter, we take you on a high-level whistle-stop tour of Python’s basics, introducing the language without getting too much into the weeds. You’ll learn how to create and run code with Jupyter Notebook (running inside VS Code). You’ll see how lots of programming functionality comes built-in to Python, which you’ll leverage to get stuff done. You’ll also learn that although Python shares a lot of ...