Question

I am working on exercise 0 (the 1st assignment)
And this is what I have come up with:

>>> bday = raw_input('Please enter your birth date: ')
Please enter your birth date: 5 1985
>>> lastname = raw_input('Please enter your last name: ')
Please enter your last name: mars
>>> print (bday, lastname)
('5 1985', 'mars')

I really want to write several lines of programming that will end up looking like this?
What is your bday? What is your last name? date, name But for the life of me I cannot figure out how to write anything that does more than 1 thing!!!!

Answer 1

Are you asking as in how to write in a file and run?

Answer 2

Ok, I see your problem, your typing in the command prompt version of python, when the exercises are meant to be done in python development environment, called IDLE. Its somewhat confusing to find at first, but isn't to hard when you know how. I can I show you how, but first I need to know; Are you running on a Mac, Or Windows PC?

Answer 3

Intro to IDLE:
https://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dyoo/python/idle_intro/

Answer 4

I have downloaded and installed IDLE and have been working in IDLE as is instructed in the class syllabus. I am using Mac OS X 10.9.4.

The answer might be to create a file and run a file. In searching, I have found this suggestion. But, the course reading linked to the assignment does not mention this option.

Answer 5

Also, Thank you for the Berkley link. It looks helpful!

Answer 6

Yes, all you have to do, is click 'file' - 'new file' an your ready to go!

Answer 7

I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks friends :)

Answer 8

Our pleasure! Have fun, and good luck!

Answer 9

Try copying and pasting your program from IDLE to TextMate. You can save it as a .py file in TextMate, and you can run it in there as well. My partner, who is a programmer, likes to use TextMate and introduced me to it today. Also, look at the last line of your program where you are asking it to print the variables bday and last name. There is a better way to do this that will give you a cleaner, more accurate response. Think of the operands and operators. Your variables will be your operands, and you will need an operator between them. Be sure to include spacing between the operands and the operator. Also, be aware that in Python, using certain operators will cause concatenation, so you may also want to add in a blank space.

Answer 10

Took me forever to figure this out, too. All you have to do if you are in the shell and want to be in the text editor is to go to File-New Window. Then you can set it up so that Python always opens in this window if you want using Options-Configure IDLE on the General tab.

Answer 11

Also, you don't want to open Python (command line), you want to open IDLE (Python GUI). It would be really nice if they included this simple info in the first lecture.

Answer 12

There are a few things to realize about the MIT class on campus. The book may have been intended to cover some of these things. Also, 6.00 was made for students that already knew a little programming. For those that did not, there was a 5 week companion class. I am sure a lot of these basics were covered there. So between the book, people with some know how, and a companion class, the use of IDLE is something the lecture did not need.

Answer 13

Thanks for your post, because of this and a little googling, I was able to complete the program.

Answer 14

Lots of questions about this class have been posted here, so lots og google help. You can use a site search to really help find it here.

At the moment the site is acting a little buggy, but the google site search will not care.