Comments

Because computer languages can be terse and confusing to the human reader, they let you add comments that are ignored by the computer (i.e., they are not part of the program). In Python, any text on the same line following the # symbol is ignored. In the following examples, we’ve put that text in a different font to emphasize that it’s not part of the program. First, consider the following Python expression:

hours = 12           # Set the value of the variable hours to 12

This code creates a new data element called hours and gives it the integer value 12. Figure 2.2 illustrates the structure of this line.

Figure 2.2 – The structure of a statement with a comment

Let’s say you were then to write the following:

allTime = hours + 3    # Add 3 to the hours and assign a result to a new variable, allTime

Then, the computer would read the...