There are a lot of different programming concepts that go into creating even a small program like the game you just wrote. In this lesson, you'll take a look at what these concepts are.
Fundamental Tools
The fundamental tools you used to write this game can on a high level be summed up as:
- Text Editor
- Code
- File
You used your text editor to write code that you saved as a file:
Then you were able to run that file using Python, which executed the code you wrote and made it do its thing.
Programming Concepts
Now take a look at the code itself. Fair warning: What comes next will look like a lot, because there is a lot going on. A Python script can be broken into many parts, much like how a paragraph of English can consist of many different parts:
- An introductory sentence
- References to outside text
- Subjects
- Nouns
- Verbs
- And sometimes new vocabulary
Like with a paragraph in English, if you are able to understand these different parts, then it's likely that you can also write and understand another similar paragraph.
However, if you are just getting started with programming, you need to be forgiving with yourself. Think of yourself like a newborn who doesn't yet know how to understand---or form---correct sentences. That's okay! You learned to understand language, and you can learn to understand code as well. And it will be much easier than learning your first language :)
With that in mind, scroll down to check out this masterpiece of abstract color squares:
Those are a lot of colored squares!!!
Don't worry if most of what you can see doesn't make any sense to you yet. This is what's expected if you're just starting out. You'll look into all of the concepts recorded in this image and many more during the course, and with time and practice you will see that you will start understanding more and more.
What is important to keep in mind for now is that:
- Programming is just writing text
- You run Python programs with Python
- There's fun stuff you can build :)
Ready to dig deeper? Great, keep up that motivation! But before it's time to keep coding, you need to make sure that your computer is set up properly. You'll do that in the upcoming section.
Summary: Programming Concepts
In this section, you saw how you can build and run an interactive Python script right on your own computer with tools you already know. You probably also guessed a number or two :)