72 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: story
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title: "First Light"
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xp: 25
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duration: 25
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difficulty: 1
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---
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# First Light
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> **[INCOMING — Mission Control, Earth]**
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>
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> Cadet, you've got the ground beneath you. Bash, Git, the cohort —
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> all there. Now we hand you a language.
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>
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> Python. We picked it because it's small enough to learn fast, big
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> enough to power half the systems running in production right now,
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> and clear enough that you can read it like prose. The trade for
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> "easy to read" is that some advanced concepts come later than they
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> would in C or Java. We'll get to them.
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>
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> [TRANSMISSION CONTINUES]
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## Why Python
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Three reasons:
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1. **Syntax that gets out of your way.** No semicolons. No braces.
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Indentation is structure. You'll spend more time thinking about
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the problem than fighting the language.
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2. **Batteries included.** A standard library that lets you do
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networking, data, files, math, dates, and more without installing
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anything.
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3. **It runs everywhere.** Web servers, data pipelines, scripts,
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embedded systems, machine learning. The skills transfer.
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## How You'll Run It
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You'll meet Python in three ways:
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- **`python3 -c 'expression'`** — run a one-liner from the shell
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- **The REPL** — type `python3` with no argument; you get an
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interactive prompt where every line runs immediately
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- **A script** — write code in a `.py` file and run it with
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`python3 file.py`
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The next three blocks walk you through all three.
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## What's Coming
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After this module:
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- `strings` — text processing
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- `flow` — conditionals and loops
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- `collections` — lists, dicts, sets
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- `functions` — your own building blocks
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- `files-errors` — read/write files, handle failures
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- `algorithms` — recursion, classic problems
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- `oop` — classes
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- `capstone` — the hard ones (8 queens, sudoku, more)
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Then the checkpoint.
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> **[CLOSING — Mission Control]**
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>
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> You already know how to learn here. The hard part — the courage to
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> open a terminal — is behind you. The rest is practice and patience.
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>
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> Open Python on the next block.
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>
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> [END TRANSMISSION]
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