[MUSIC]

Hi, I'm Craig, and I'm a developer.

This course is going to introduce you to the wonderful programming

language, Python.

There are absolutely no prerequisites for this course.

This is intended to be the beginning of your Python journey.

It's gonna be awesome.

I'm excited for you.

Python is such a wonderful language to start with.

It's been designed to be clean and easy to read.

If you're coming from another programming language,

you'll find the simplicity of this language just delightful.

If this is your first programming language, you're in for a lot of fun.

You'll get the opportunity to think in ways that you've most likely

never thought before.

You'll challenge yourself to grow, learn, and create in new and fun ways.

Python is a general purpose language,

which means it can be used to build just about anything.

The US government uses Python to do statistical analysis and

data visualizations.

Spotify, Evernote, and OkCupid rely on Python for

personalized recommendations and other artificial intelligence-based tasks.

Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and

others use Python to provide more realistic effects in their movies.

Large familiar websites like YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, and

even the Onion lean on Python.

You can use Python for face and speech recognition.

You can control robots and shoot lasers, send an email when your doorbell rings,

and just about anything you can imagine.

So what do you say we get started learning this incredible language.

Shoot, wait a second.

Before we get too excited and I go too fast, I'd like to take a moment and

let you get familiar with your learning environment.

There's speed controls on the video player.

You should totally feel free to speed me up or

slow me down to your heart's content.

If you miss something I said, please, feel free to scrub the video back and

make me repeat myself.

Now, unlike a typical in-person classroom, here at Treehouse,

you are in complete control of your learning session.

Attached to each video, there are detailed teacher's notes.

I'll do my best to point out when there's something in there that you just

have to see.

But try to get in the habit of checking that area for

juicy bits of additional knowledge.

Another thing I want you to remember is that you aren't taking this course alone.

Although they probably aren't sitting right next to you,

many of your fellow students are taking this course right now.

And chances are they'll be having many of the same emotions that you're bound to be

experiencing as you pick up this language.

Please make use of the community.

It's amazing, and you're part of it.

It's yours.

If you have a question, please ask it.

You'll be surprised how quickly you'll receive a friendly and helpful answer.

And also, a great way to make your learning stick is to explain a concept or

a solution that you just learned.

You'll probably surprise yourself with how quickly you'll sound like a pro.

I'll bug you more about this as you progress.

But please make sure to check out the forum and

hang out with your fellow students answering their questions.

It's a win-win.

I'll pop in there too quite a bit.

And there's also an amazing team of moderators who are here to help.

We should talk a bit about what learning a programming language

is most likely going to feel like.

I'd love for you to approach this journey much like you would when you attempt to

learn a foreign language.

There are going to be a lot of new terms and concepts introduced.

And I want you to not stress about fully understanding everything all at once.

Just like you wouldn't expect to be fluent after taking your first Spanish class, you

shouldn't expect to be able to understand all the code you see immediately.

Learning takes practice, both in Spanish and Python.

[LAUGH] Spanish speakers are typically more forgiving than computers.

But just like in your hypothetical Spanish class,

you can expect it to feel super good when you can actually

communicate your thoughts in your new language, and we'll get there soon.

So do this for me.

I want you to immerse yourself in the language.

I'll point out exactly what I think you need to focus on

at this path of your journey.

But again, please don't worry about knowing everything.

Remember, this is a journey, and you are just now beginning.

As you progress,

you'll start to notice that you're picking up quite a bit just through immersion.

In this course, we're going to explore the basics of the Python language.

All of the concepts that you'll learn here are common in just about every programming

language that I can think of.

By the end of this course,

you'll build a ticket purchasing application for an event.

There will be loops, logic, error handing, and even some math.

What you're looking at here is called a command line application, and

this up here is our online code editor called Workspaces.

In just a short bit, you're gonna be able to write this code from scratch, wow.

Huge of you, it's pretty amazing, right?

So what are we waiting for?

Let's go get you up and running in your very own online code editor, Workspaces.