In this chapter, we will give a brief overview of the principal syntactical elements of Python. Readers who have just started learning programming are guided through the book in this chapter. Every topic is presented here in a how-to way and will be explained later in the book in a deeper conceptual manner and will also be enriched with many applications and extensions.

Readers who are already familiar with another programming language will, in this chapter, encounter the Python way of doing classical language constructs. This offers them a quick start to Python programming.

Both types of readers are encouraged to refer to this chapter as a brief guideline when zigzagging through the book. However, before we start, we have to make sure that everything is in place and that you have the correct version of Python installed together with the main modules...