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What is a dictionary?
1:23Learn the basics of Python dictionaries.
[MUSIC]
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Welcome to Introducing Dictionaries,
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I'm Ashley Boucher and
I'll be your teacher for this course.
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Before moving forward, take a second
to check the teacher's notes and
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make sure you've completed all of
the prerequisites for this course.
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Remember, any questions you have can
be asked in the Treehouse community.
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The community is also a great
place to help other students and
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answer their questions as well.
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Ready to get started?
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In this course you're going to learn about
a new type of Python data structure,
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the dictionary.
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A dictionary is a set of key value pairs.
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Think of a Python list, an ordered
sequence of comma separated values,
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indexed by numbers.
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A dictionary does have
similarities to a list.
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For instance, dictionaries also
contain comma separated values,
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but that's really where
the similarities end.
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In a dictionary, each of its
values has a label called the key.
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And dictionaries are not sequences,
they aren't ordered.
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They're indexed by their keys,
not numbers.
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You'll see variations of dictionaries in
just about every programming language.
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You might know them as associative
arrays or associative memories.
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They're the earliest stepping
stone in thinking about object
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oriented programming,
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a design pattern that revolves around
modeling reusable objects in your code.
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It's an exciting topic,
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join me in the next video to start
learning more about key value pairs.
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