Python programming

1. What You Should Know Before You Begin It might help if you know a bit about Python programming (or how to program in another language besides Python) before you read through this book; however even if you haven’t you can still read this book anyway. Programming isn’t nearly as hard as people think it is. If you ever run into some trouble, you can read the free book “Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python” online at http://inventwithpython.com or look up a topic that you find confusing on the Invent with Python wiki at http://inventwithpython.com/wiki. You don’t need to know how to use the Pygame library before reading this book. The next chapter is a brief tutorial on all of Pygame’s major features and functions. Just in case you haven’t read the first book and already installed Python and Pygame on your computer, the installation instructions are in this chapter. If you already have installed both of these then you can skip this chapter. Downloading and Installing Python Before we can begin programming you'll need to install software called the Python interpreter on your computer. (You may need to ask an adult for help here.) The interpreter is a program that understands the instructions that you’ll write (or rather, type out) in the Python language. Without the interpreter, your computer won't be able to run your Python programs. We'll just refer to “the Python interpreter” as “Python” from now on. The Python interpreter software can be downloaded from the official website of the Python programming language, http://www.python.org. You might want the help of someone else to download and install the Python software. The installation is a little different depending on if your computer’s operating system is Windows, Mac OS X, or a Linux OS such as Ubuntu. You can also find videos online of people installing the Python software on their computers Windows Instructions When you get to http://python.org, you should see a list of links on the left (such as “About”, “News”, “Documentation”, “Download”, and so on). Click on theDownload link to go to the download page, then look for the file called “Python 3.2 Windows Installer (Windows binary -- does not include source)” and click on its link to download Python for Windows.

2. Double-click on the python-3.2.msi file that you've just downloaded to start the Python installer. (If it doesn’t start, try right-clicking the file and choosing Install.) Once the installer starts up, just keep clicking the Next button and just accept the choices in the installer as you go (no need to make any changes). When the install is finished, click Finish. Mac OS X Instructions Mac OS X 10.5 comes with Python 2.5.1 pre-installed by Apple. Currently, Pygame only supports Python 2 and not Python 3. However, the programs in this book work with both Python 2 and 3. The Python website also has some additional information about using Python on a Mac at http://docs.python.org/dev/using/mac.html. Ubuntu and Linux Instructions Pygame for Linux also only supports Python 2, not Python 3. If your operating system is Ubuntu, you can install Python by opening a terminal window (from the desktop click on Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and entering “sudo apt-get install python2.7” then pressing Enter. You will need to enter the root password to install Python, so ask the person who owns the computer to type in this password if you do not know it. You also need to install the IDLE software. From the terminal, type in “sudo apt-get install idle”. The root password is also needed to install IDLE (ask the owner of your computer to type in this password for you). Contact Details: Website URL:- https://kodblems.com