New To Python

[bowman]

Gary N. Potts <gnpotts at email.uophx.edu> wrote:

>however, I have not been able
>to find a decent instructional guide on how to actually use the program
>itself.  Is there any good tutorials for that purpose out there and if so,

What do you mean by 'how to use the program?' You have two choices; type
python at the prompt, and you will be in an interactive mode, indicated by
the default '>>>' prompt. You can then enter simple expressions, function
definitions, and so forth to experiment with the language.

Other than that, you edit a Python program, and wither run it as
> python foo.py 
from your prompt, or with something like
#! /usr/local/bin/python
as the first line in the file, depending on your platform and setup.

You can use your favorite text editor to do this, or the idle utiity included
with the distro.

Other than that, Python doesn't 'do' anything. It is a programming language;
you write the program, and it interprets and executes it.