Code is a powerful tool. It powers the modern world. If you have a computer, you have access to code. Code can change the world!
I wondered what it would be like to run my first program after reading the lines of code from a paper book. It is a rite of passage to create a program which produces the following text. The language this ritual is performed in changes with the times. Today we will use Python.
Install a Python interpreter directly onto your machine
Once the Python interpreter is installed open a terminal (Mac) or cmd prompt (Windows).
Type
python
and hit
Enter
.
You are now in a Python interpreter!
You should then see a prompt similar to
Python 3.8.2 (default, Jun 8 2021, 11:59:35)
[Clang 12.0.5 (clang-1205.0.22.11)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
It is possible to then run commands at the prompt!
Try to print some text by running
>>>print("Hello World")
Congrats you can run code!
Note: You should be using Python3 by now :)
Note: the following commands are for terminal on Mac (sorry Windows)
Create a project directory from the terminal with
mkdir python_hello
Enter into the new directory with
cd python_hello
.
Create a new file called
hello.py
by running
touch hello.py
Add the following contents to the file using a text editor of choice
print("Hello World")
You can then run this code with
python hello.py
.
The text "Hello World" should be printed to the screen. It takes many transistors to make this work! The electrical engineer knows this, the programmer takes it for granted nowadays. This is always how society progresses.
But it is nice that it is as simple as that to get started.
Congrats on writing your first line of code!
Remeber it is never a bad idea to ask for
>>>help()
The only way to learn to code is by reading and writing it!