Module 2 · Basics · Lesson 1 of 9

Your very first program

You've printed text and you've seen an error. Now let's write a program that actually does something — one that remembers a piece of information and uses it. That's the leap from “hello world” to real code.

name = "Ada"
print("Hello,", name)
print("Welcome to Python!")

The first line creates a variable: name = "Ada" tells Python to remember the text "Ada" under the label name. Think of it as a labelled box you can put a value into and open again later.

The next line uses it: print("Hello,", name) prints the word Hello, followed by whatever's in the box — so you get Hello, Ada. Change the value to your own name, run it again, and the program greets you. That tiny change is the whole point: the program works with data, not just fixed words.

Don't just take our word for it — this is real Python, running right here in your browser. Change "Ada" to your own name (or add another print line) and press Run:

That's exactly what happens when you save it as greet.py and run python greet.py on your own machine. You've written your first real program. From here, every new idea — more variables, doing maths, making decisions — just adds to this same foundation.