'instruct the computer'?

It means that you privide the computer with a set of instructions in a language it can understand.

That language, in our case, will be python

'perform various tasks'?

A task could be anything. For example:

Python is an object-oriented programming language, first developed in 1980.

It has become extremelly popular in recent years due to its ease of use.

object oriented means that the language is structured around objects, which are also called classes:

• Each class contains (or encapsulates) a specific functionality.
• A class may inherit functionality from it’s parent class.
  • This makes the language extremelly extendable.

During this semester, we’ll be making this two questions a lot:

• What is an specific object?
  • Is this object a point? Is this object a mesh?
• What does a specific object have?
  • Does a shape have an area?
  • Does a rectangle have a length?

Comments

# This is a comment

Comments are just text, they do not affect our code in any way.

They are used to include detailed instructions or clarifications in our code.

Comments in Python always start with a hashtag #

Variables

x = 10
name = "Alan"

Variables store information to be referenced and used by programs.

They also provide a way of labeling data with a descriptive name.

Computed variables

x = 10
y = 3
z = x + y

Computed variables have values that are the result of an operation.

This operation can be very simple (like a sum), or extremelly complex.

Functions

def FullName(name, surname):
    return name + surname

Functions (also called methods sometimes), encapsulate a specific functionality in a specific name.

This allows you to reuse the same logic in different parts of your program.

Functions can have many inputs, but only one output called the return value of the function

Classes

class Person:
    name = "Alan"
    surname = "Rynne"

    def FullName(name, surname):
        return name + " " + surname

Classes contain variables and methods(functions), that are related to the same concept.

Libraries

import math
import Rhino.Geometry as RG

Libraries are a collection of classes defined by a given name and have to be imported into your script.

• The math library contains many usefull functions like sin() or cos()
• The Rhino library contains everything Rhino related

Some basic data-types are:

Other more complex data-types include collections:

Some of the most popular ones will be

We will be using the GHPython component

And VSCode further in the course

Generic resources

1. Rhino Developer Docs
2. RhinoCommon API
3. Python for Non-Programmers

Rhino/GH resources

• RhinoPython Primer
• Code of Space
• Designalyze
• Rhino Python Samples