Telegram Bots: The Very Basics
As you know, a Telegram bot is a special user account controlled by a server program. Bots can have dialogs with users, send messages, reply to commands, send pictures, participate in groups and channels, and so on.
However, bots have some limitations compared to real users. Most of these limitations are to protect users' privacy: for instance, bots can't join groups on their own and must be added by users.
How to program a bot
Here is a short answer:
- Register a bot.
- Choose a library for your favorite programming language.
- Use the library docs and this book to write the code.
While you can run the bot program on your computer during development, you'll want to deploy it to a hosting service when the code is ready for production.
All these steps are covered in detail further in the "Development" chapter.