preface what you need you can of course just read this bookhowever following the examples in this book will ensure that you get as much as possible out of the content for this you will need computer python is cross platform programming language and as such you can use python on windows pca linux box or an apple mac etc this means that you are not tied to particular type of operating systemyou can use whatever you have available however you will need to install some software on your computer at minimum you will need python the focus of this book is python so that is the version that is assumed for all examples and exercises as python is available for wide range of platforms from windowsto mac os and linuxyou will need to ensure that you download the version for your operating system python can be downloaded from the main python web site which can be found at you will also need some form of editor in which to write your programs there are numerous generic programming editors available for different operating systems with vim on linuxnotepad+on windows and sublime text on windows and macs being popular choices