What are our goals

Oh, hi there!

In this series of courses you will learn the basics of programming in Python. Expect lots of examples and exercises. They will slowly build up into a real, useful app. Something you could actually launch, use in your life and share with your friends. It will be kinda lame in the beginning, but functional and real. We will keep making it more and more powerful throughout the next courses. At each step we will face a problem, a thing we'd need to understand to reach a goal. This way, you will see why we learn something.

Our goal is to build a book management app. If you like to read, or at least occasionally find yourself in a bookstore or a library wondering what to get, this app will make total sense.

But if you find this topic boring and irrelevant from the get-go, then consider modifying it. The idea is that we'll have some sort of a collection of books. Each book consists of two things: title and text. Our app will manage books, allow to search, get random suggestions, etc. You can "convert" this idea into your idea. Love cooking? Then, make a recipe management app instead of a book management app. The same structure though: a recipe item has a title and some text (recipe description).

Of course, this will require some extra work on your behalf. Every time we say "book", you'll have to think "recipe" or "game". Every time we discuss some action on a book, you'll have to convert that into the corresponding action on your thing. And so on. So, don't stray too far away from the basic concept of "a collection of items, where each has a title and a description".

"Writing an app" means "writing code" or simply "coding". Which in turn means creating one or more text files and typing a lot of structured text called "code". A programmer's job is to think and type. An average software engineer writes more in their lifetime than an average writer. So, that's what you gonna do: type text into text files. Let's go!

P.S. A quick note on the structure of the courses and related terminology:

1. This course and the next courses (Python part 2, Python part 3, etc.) each constitute a set of related topics.
2. The courses are meant to be completed in order.
3. Each course consists of chapters. Each chapter consists of lessons. The menu on the left side of the screen lets you jump between lessons. (The menu can be toggled by clicking on ☰ in the top bar. It collapses automatically on smaller screens like tablets or phones).