• =
• *

In this example we create two variables width and height containing the numbers 23 and 17 respectively.

Unlike in math, in programming in general where you see a single equal sign = it means assignment. It means we want the value on the right-hand-side to be in the variable on the left-hand-side.

Others might say make the word/name on the left-hand-side of the = sign refer to the value that is on the right-hand-side.

In any case this is not a mathematical statement of truth not an equation, but a statement of an action.

On the next line we multiply the values in two already existing variable and assign the result to a third variable called area.

At the end we use the print function that we have already seen, to print out the results on the screen.

A simple mathematical operation.

width = 23
height = 17

area = width * height
print(area)    # 391