This is an alpha-quality book. There are mistakes, oh yes. When you find them, please drop an issue in GitHub, or a pull request, or email me at beej@beej.us. When the number of defects gets low enough, I’ll offer a print version.
Hey, everyone! Have you been thinking about learning to program? Have you also been thinking of how to do it in the easy-to-approach Python programming language?
Yes? Then this is the book for you. We’re going to start with the absolute basics and build up from there, building up to being an intermediate developer and problem-solver! Python is the language we’ll be using to make this happen.
But by the end of the book, you will have developed programming techniques that transcend languages. After picking up Python, maybe try another language like JavaScript, Go, or Rust. They all have their own features to explore and learn.
Beginning programmers. If you have limited experience or no experience, this book is targeted at you!
Attitude Prerequisite: be inquisitive, curious, have an eye for puzzles and problem solving, and be willing to take on difficult challenges.
Technical Prerequisite: be a computer user. You know what files are, how to move them and delete them, what subdirectories (folders) are, can install software, and how to type.
Are you a seasoned developer looking to start with Python? I’m sorry but this is not likely to be the book you’re looking for. It will progress too slowly for your tastes. Just jump straight into the official Python documentation1.
I make an effort in this book to cover Mac, Windows, and Unix variants (via Arch Linux).
We’ll cover installing Python 3 and the Visual Studio Code editor. (Both are free.) If you already have a code editor you prefer using (Vim, Emacs, Sublime, Atom, PyCharm, etc.) feel free to use that. This book’s 100% certified editor agnostic!
The official location of this document is:
There you will also find example code.
I’m generally available to help out with email questions so feel free to write in, but I can’t guarantee a response. I lead a pretty busy life and there are times when I just can’t answer a question you have. When that’s the case, I usually just delete the message. It’s nothing personal; I just won’t ever have the time to give the detailed answer you require.
As a rule, the more complex the question, the less likely I am to respond. If you can narrow down your question before mailing it and be sure to include any pertinent information (like platform, compiler, error messages you’re getting, and anything else you think might help me troubleshoot), you’re much more likely to get a response. For more pointers, read ESR’s document, How To Ask Questions The Smart Way2.
If you don’t get a response, hack on it some more, try to find the answer, and if it’s still elusive, then write me again with the information you’ve found, and hopefully, it will be enough for me to help out.
Now that I’ve badgered you about how to write and not write me, I’d just like to let you know that I fully appreciate all the praise the guide has received over the years. It’s a real morale boost, and it gladdens me to hear that it is being used for good! :-) Thank you!
You are more than welcome to mirror this site, whether publicly or privately. If you publicly mirror the site and want me to link to it from the main page, drop me a line at beej@beej.us.
If you want to translate the guide into another language, write me at beej@beej.us and I’ll link to your translation from the main page. Feel free to add your name and contact info to the translation.
This source markdown document uses UTF-8 encoding.
Please note the license restrictions in the Copyright, Distribution, and Legal section, below.
If you want me to host the translation, just ask. I’ll also link to it if you want to host it; either way is fine.
Beej’s Guide to Python Programming is Copyright © 2019 Brian “Beej Jorgensen” Hall.
With specific exceptions for source code and translations, below, this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
One specific exception to the “No Derivative Works” portion of the license is as follows: this guide may be freely translated into any language, provided the translation is accurate, and the guide is reprinted in its entirety. The same license restrictions apply to the translation as to the original guide. The translation may also include the name and contact information for the translator.
The C source code presented in this document is hereby granted to the public domain, and is completely free of any license restriction.
Educators are freely encouraged to recommend or supply copies of this guide to their students.
Unless otherwise mutually agreed by the parties in writing, the author offers the work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including, without limitation, warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement, or the absence of latent or other defects, accuracy, or the presence of absence of errors, whether or not discoverable.
Except to the extent required by applicable law, in no event will the author be liable to you on any legal theory for any special, incidental, consequential, punitive or exemplary damages arising out of the use of the work, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Contact beej@beej.us for more information.
Thanks to everyone who has helped in the past and future with me getting this guide written. And thank you to all the people who produce the Free software and packages that I use to make the Guide: GNU, Linux, Slackware, vim, Python, Inkscape, pandoc, many others. And finally a big thank-you to the literally thousands of you who have written in with suggestions for improvements and words of encouragement.
I dedicate this guide to some of my biggest heroes and inspirators in the world of computers: Donald Knuth, Bruce Schneier, W. Richard Stevens, and The Woz, my Readership, and the entire Free and Open Source Software Community.
This book is written in Markdown using the vim editor on an Arch Linux box loaded with GNU tools. The cover “art” and diagrams are produced with Inkscape. The Markdown is converted to HTML and LaTex/PDF by Python, Pandoc and XeLaTeX, using Liberation fonts. The toolchain is composed of 100% Free and Open Source Software.