Learning Python is an introduction to the increasingly popular Python programming language — an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented scripting language that is portable across all Windows and major Unix platforms, including Linux. This book thoroughly introduces the elements of Python: types, operators, statements, classes, functions, modules, and exceptions. Proceeding to more advanced features, it demonstrates how Python performs common tasks and presents real applications as well as the libraries available for those applications. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises, with solutions included in the appendix. All examples use the Python interpreter, so the reader can enter them and get instant feedback. Learning Python is written by Mark Lutz, author of Programming Python and Python Pocket Reference ; and David Ascher, a vision scientist and Python user.