John Pinner and David Chan - Clockwork Systems

TUTORIAL: Python for Programmers

At Clockwork Systems, Python has become our mainstream language for business applications development. We have come from a C, C++ and 4GL background, and when we decided to go the Python route we found that there are virtually no Python courses in the UK. So we have developed courses for others in the same position, and this tutorial is based on one of them. Specifically, it will point newcomers to the language towards the features and resources which we took a long time to find out the hard way!

This tutorial is an introduction to Python for non-Python programmers. It is intended for those who are familiar with at least one other language and who have never used Python, but have heard about it and want to know more. It is very much a hands-on tutorial (bring your laptop) which gives a broad overview of Python and how it relates to other languages. It covers the whole of the basic language, including its object-oriented capabilities, so that you can find out if it is for you, and go away ready to make a flying start with Python.