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Introduction to Python
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.. toctree::
   :hidden:

   first_look
   keywords_and_built_in_functions
   identifiers
   data_types
   operators
   conditions_and_loops
   functions
   classes
   

.. 
   admonition:: Precap

   Knowing the 

.. 
   list-table::
   :header-rows: 1

   * -
     - Natural language
     - Programming language
   * - Intended to be easily used by
     - humans
     - machines
   * - Number of wordsss
     - Very large
     - Very small


   
This section aims to be a compact introduction to the Python 3 programming language. Python 3 was released for the first time in 2008 and replaced it's predecessor Python 2 which was released for the first time in 2000 but is unsupported since 2020. The very first version of Python was released in 1991.

The only reason to not to learn only Python 3 is that there is still quite a bit of Python 2 code out there. So some information covering Python 2 is also included in the following pages.


This introduction begins with

.. rst-class:: strong-references

  * a :doc:`first look <first_look>` at some example code to look at the fundamental language elements of Python 3.

and continues to take a closer look at each of those elements:

.. rst-class:: strong-references

  * :doc:`keywords_and_built_in_functions`: The Python 3 programming language consists of 35 keywords and 69 built-in functions.
  * :doc:`identifiers`: Identifiers are short pieces of text that are used to name elements like variables, functions, classes etc. 
  * :doc:`data_types`: Different types of data like e.g. numbers, text, calendar dates, etc. have different capabilities.
  * :doc:`operators`: Get to know the different available operators.
  * :doc:`conditions_and_loops`: Change the order how a sequence of statements is executed.
  * :doc:`functions` help to make code more modular and reusable by naming a sequence of statements.
  * :doc:`classes`:  are the base of object-oriented programming (OOP), a programming paradigm that helps to write maintainable & scalable code.

..  
  * :doc:`error_handling`: How to handle errors that happen during program execution.