Python Programming Basics: Print, Variables, Comments and Strings

Python Comments

# Comments tell a computer to ignore a part of the program. The code or comments will not run by the computer: these are called code comments.  Python interprets anything after the # symbol as a comment.

# This is a python comment

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Python Print

Python print function lets you tell the computer what to say. Make sure that you message you want to display is surrounded by quotes, otherwise it will through a SyntaxError.

# In Python you can output a string of text by using double-quotes "" or '' single-quotes. Just remember that the quotes have to be the same for each string, if not it will throw a SyntaxError  

#Bad - print("bad') - will throw SyntaxError because of mismatched statement quotes

#Good - print("good") or ('good')

# We are going to output something. In python this is done by using print

print ("Howdy Earthlings")

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Python Variables

#Variables let you reuse code by storage data to be easily changed and reused.

#Assigning variables is done by using the equals sign =

#Python variables can't have spaces or symbols in their names, though you can use underscores _ . They also can't start with number, you can use numbers in the variables, but just not as the first character.

#Good - my_awesome_666varible

#Bad - 666_my_aweomsevariable

#message_string is our variable

message_string = "Howdy Earthlings"

# Prints "Howdy Earthlings"

print(message_string)

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Python Strings

# Programming often calls a character text block as strings.

# In Python you can output a string of text by using double-quotes "" or '' single-quotes. Just remember that the quotes have to be the same for each string, if not it will throw a SyntaxError  

# In the code below the string is Amie, because it is in the quotes block 'Amie'

print('Amie')

print("Amie")

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