Python Programming Basics and Software Development

Software Development Process

• Consists of five stages: Understanding the Problem, Defining Specifications, Planning the Solution, Writing the Code, and Testing & Debugging.
• Understanding the Problem: Clearly defining the program's purpose and target audience is crucial.
• Defining Specifications: Outlining program features, functions, inputs, processing, and expected outputs.
• Planning the Solution: Mapping the program's functionality, selecting appropriate algorithms and data structures.
• Writing the Code: Translating the plan into code using an appropriate language (e.g., Python).
• Testing and Debugging: Rigorous testing under various conditions to identify and fix any bugs.

Input, Processing, and Output

• Input: Gathering data from various sources; manipulating it according to defined specifications.
• Processing: Performing calculations, manipulations, or transformations on the data.
• Output: Displaying or delivering results (information) to the user

Variables

• Named references for storing data.
• Crucial for managing and manipulating data effectively.
• Python naming conventions, case sensitivity, and reserved keywords are important for clarity and functionality.

Data Types

• Data Type: Defines the characteristics of data a variable can hold.
• Numeric Types: Integers, floats, and complex numbers.
• Text Types: Strings.
• Boolean Types: True or False.

Expressions and Operators

• Expressions: Small segments of code that create or calculate new data values.
• Operators: Symbols performing specific operations on variables and values.

Python Keywords

• Python keywords: Reserved words that have special meanings in Python.
• Cannot be used as variable names.

String Operations

• String slicing: Extracting substrings.
• Concatenation: Combining multiple strings into a single string.
• String formatting: (e.g., using f-strings).

Control Flow

• Conditional statements: (if, if-else, if-elif-else): Controlling program flow based on conditions.
• if statement: Executes a block of code if a specified condition is true.
• if-else statement: Executes one block of code if the condition is true and another block if it is false.
• if-elif-else statement: Checks multiple conditions sequentially.
• match-case statement: Alternative to switch statements, allowing for more complex conditional logic.

Type Conversion

• Converting from one data type to another (e.g., string to integer).

Operators

• Arithmetic operators: Used for basic mathematical computations (+, -, *, /, //, %);
• Comparison operators: Compare values (e.g., ==,!=, <, >, <=, >=);
• Logical operators: Combine conditional statements (e.g., and, or, not).