1 Coffee for friends: First steps

 

In this chapter

  • Erik gets an idea
  • Erik and Simon discuss the future application
  • Erik installs a code editor and tries to run his first program in Python
  • Simon explains how to use variables
  • Erik writes his first dialogue in Python

It all started on a sunny summer day. Erik came home with an idea: he wanted to prepare coffee drinks for his friends. Who knew that he would create his own online application for that?

“I’ll make it just like at Starbucks, with many flavors and toppings,” he thought. “I think I have everything I need: coffee, three or four flavors to add, and some chocolate cream for toppings. Great!”

“Where’s my iPad?” he asked his older brother Simon.

“Where you left it. Why?”

“I need it to collect orders for my coffee shop!”

He came back several minutes later with notes on his iPad, prepared four drinks for his friends, and left again.

“Wasn’t it a good idea?” he asked Simon, when he came home with four empty plastic cups.

“Yes, great idea,” Simon said. “But . . .”

“What ‘but’?” Erik asked. He felt that his older brother wanted to ruin his day—as he usually did.

“You used your iPad to take orders, but you used it just as a plain paper notepad. You could create a simple application for your coffee shop and use it to take orders.”

“You mean, like in an online shop? With menus and all that?” Erik already imagined his own web store with a huge title at the top: “Erik’s Coffee Shop.”

First things first: Installation

How to talk to a computer

What is a program?

New things you have learned today

Code for this chapter

More ideas for your projects

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