portlandpython / project-night

Information about our Project Nights

Portland Python Project Night

Working on something cool?

Give a lightning talk at our next Presentation Night! If you've never given a talk before, don't worry we have a guide!

Resources for New Python Programmers

We're happy to have you here at the Portland Python Project and Study Night. Mentors are around to help, so don't be afraid to ask if you need any help.

Installing Python

Should I use Python 2.7 or Python 3?

Unless you have a specific reason to use Python 2.7 we'd recommend that you start with Python 3. After all, it's the future of the language.

Installing

• Download python from python.org.
• If you're on Mac OS X and have Homebrew installed, then you can install Python 3 with brew install python3.
• Anaconda has Windows, Mac, and Linux installers and includes many popular Python packages.

What Editor Should I Use?

There are plenty of great options for editing your python code. Some our favorites are:

• Idle -- Integrated Development and Learning Environment (comes with Python!)
• Atom -- A free and open source text editor from GitHub
• Sublime Text -- A popular commercial text editor
• Vim -- A free and open source text editor
• GNU Emacs -- A free and open source text editor
• PyCharm -- A full featured Python IDE. The community edition is free to download

Tutorials and Classes

• The Official Python Tutorial
• MIT Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Class

Books we like

• Think Python 2nd Edition -- Can be read for free online