Real World Instrumentation with Python

Chapter 3. The Python Programming Language

I just want to go on the record as being completely opposed to computer languages. Let them have their own language and soon they’ll be off in the corner plotting with each other!

—Dr. Steven D. Majewski

A key requirement for automated instrumentation is the ability to describe what needs to be done in terms that a computer, or some other type of automated control system, can execute. While the term “programming” might immediately come to mind for some readers, there are actually many ways to do this, some of which don’t even involve a programming language (at least, not in the conventional sense). However, in this book we will be using Python, along with a smattering of C, to create software for automated instrumentation.

This chapter is intended to give you a basic introduction to Python. In the next chapter I’ll introduce the C programming language, which we’ll use to create extensions for Python that will allow you to interface with a vendor’s driver, or create modules for handling computation-intensive chores. This chapter is not intended as an in-depth tutorial or reference for Python; there are many other excellent books available that can fill those roles (refer to the references at the end of this chapter for suggested reading). There is also an extensive collection of documents available at the official Python website, ranging from beginner’s tutorials to advanced topics.

Python was chosen as the primary programming language for this ...