In this tutorial I am going to give you a gentle introduction to network programming in Python. If you are new to programming or new to Python then that may seem like a daunting thought. But read on and you will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is.

Like most modern programming languages, Python was designed for networking from the very beginning, and thanks to that, a lot of the networking tasks you would want to accomplish with the language are made a whole lot easier.

Network communication is a large topic, but if it is something that interests you then read on because in this tutorial I will show you how to download a web page. I will show you how easy Python makes tasks like this.

Take a look at the following code:

import urllib
	
con = urllib.urlopen("http://hartmannsoftware.com")
page = con.read()
con.close()
print page

This section of our beginning python training class always stumps students.  Firstly, because they need to know the difference between a function and a method.  Secondly, they need to understand object oriented programming concepts.  Thirdly, they need to realize that python has three types of methods.  Then they need to know how to use each method, which means they need to know the purpose of each method type.  Then they have to understand mutable versus non-mutable types.  The list goes on.  As part of our python tutorial, I hope to shed some light on this confusing topic.

To begin, the difference between a function and a method in python is that a method is defined within a class.  Here is an illustration:

#function

	def greeting():
	                print "Hello, I hope you're having a great day!"

	class HSGPrinter(object):
	                #method
	                def greeting(self): 
	                                print "Hello, I hope you're having a great day!"

As should be obvious, the second definition of greeting is encapsulated within the HSGPrinter class and is , therefore, refered to as a method.

The astute reader will notice that the greeting method contains one parameter named self.  For those who know C++ , Java or C#, self is equivalent to this i.e. it is a reference to the invoking object:

Is it possible for anyone to give Microsoft a fair trial? The first half of 2012 is in the history books. Yet the firm still cannot seem to shake the public opinion as The Evil Empire that produces crap code.

I am in a unique position. I joined the orbit of Microsoft in 1973 after the Army decided it didn't need photographers flying around in helicopters in Vietnam anymore. I was sent to Fort Lewis and assigned to 9th Finance because I had a smattering of knowledge about computers. And the Army was going to a computerized payroll system.

Bill and Paul used the University of Washington's VAX PDP computer to create BASIC for the Altair computer. Certainly laughable by today's standards, it is the very roots of the home computer.

Microsoft became successful because it delivered what people wanted.

Different programming languages gain popularity for different features.  Java tutorials have proven particular popular over a long period of time, thanks to a diverse group of strengths inherent to the language itself.  Let’s examine some of the basic elements of Java, and find out what it is both powerful and popular:

·         WORA – Write Once Run Anywhere is a programming ideal that has never been effectively achieved.  The goal is to be able to write code a single time, and have it deploy in the same way across multiple platforms.  Although it is still an ideal, proper Java tutorials exist that demonstrate how we are moving closer to success.

·         Object-Oriented – This programming philosophy designates that there is no coding that takes place outside established class definitions.  A large class library is also available right within the core language pack.

·         Compiler plus Interpreter – Once you have written your code, you can compile it into bytecodes which are then fed into a JVM, or Java virtual machine.  You can then follow popular Java tutorials to see how you can extensively debug your code using this functionality.