Installing the Python Interpreter

Because you need the Python interpreter to run Python scripts, the first step in using Python is usually installing Python. Unless one is already available on your machine, you’ll need to fetch, install, and possibly configure a recent version of Python on your computer. You’ll only need to do this once per machine, and if you will be running a frozen binary (described in Chapter 2) or self-installing system, you may not need to do much more.