Python programs are executed by an interpreter, which means the code is fed through this interpreter to be executed by the underlying operating system and results are displayed. There are several different implementations of the interpreter by the Python development community, such as IronPython and Jython. In this book, we will use the most common Python interpreter in use today, CPython. Whenever we mention Python in this book, we are referring to CPython unless otherwise indicated.
One way you can use Python is by taking advantage of the interactive prompt. This is useful when you want to quickly test a piece of Python code or concept without writing a whole program. This is typically done by simply typing in the ...