Background

These are intended to be introductory notes to Python Programming and are to be used as part of my academic courses. Purists and Pythonistas are free to despair at my approach: I want to provide just enough Python for someone to rapidly write scripts, that a non-programmer can follow.

I have been writing code since the late 1970s and Python since c. 2013. Some of my practices may seem dated, although all documentation in Phoenician and Aramaic has now been updated to modern Hiberno-English.

These notes were specifically written as an introduction for students who will be studying systems-related courses. I have focused on the functionality I would use for controlling network equipment, and for writing tools to run in Linux (or most other OS) to do communications, telemetry, and security.

I do not assume pre-existing knowledge, although you should know how to work at the command prompt and use an editor. If you have not used Visual Studio Code or Notepad++, familiarize yourself with these tools before continuing.

You are expected to start this content in week 5 and spend c. 3 weeks developing your skills.

In this document, there are several key terms. These will be italicized. You may need to look up these terms to get a full understanding of them. Commands are generally shown in bold.

In these notes, an ISO file is an image of a DVD used for installation purposes.

Where I use powers, I show then using the caret symbol, e.g. 2^4 = 16.

Copyright

The content of these notes are (c) John ORaw 2024

I have tried to acknowledge and cite sources, if you think I have missed crediting someone else's work, please contact me at [e-mail]