This document provides an overview of the Python programming language. It discusses Python's history and evolution, its key features like being object-oriented, open source, portable, having dynamic typing and built-in types/tools. It also covers Python's use for numeric processing with libraries like NumPy and SciPy. The document explains how to use Python interactively from the command line and as scripts. It describes Python's basic data types like integers, floats, strings, lists, tuples and dictionaries as well as common operations on these types.