Fast Track to Python - Session 1

Prerequisites

Experience in some other programming language, Python experience not required. If you want to follow along with the exercises, bring along a laptop.

Description

This 5 session class introduces you to the Python programming language, quickly introducing you to the main points of the language and moving on to advanced Python constructs and some of the most important libraries.

In this class you’ll learn

• Basic Python syntax

• Modularity in Python

• Basic text processing

• Python support for object-oriented programming

• Python support for resource management and iteration

• Packaging your code for reuse and distribution

• Concurrent programming

• Network and web programming

• Python unit testing

Session 1: Python Overview

Lecture 0: Why Python?

Exercise 0: Install Python

Lecture 1: Python basics

Exercise 1: Basic syntax

Exercise 1.1: Hello world

Exercise 1.2: Variables (Hello, User)

Exercise 1.3: If/then/else

Exercise 1.4: While loops

Lecture 2: Functions and Variables

Exercise 2: Introducing functions and the basic types

Exercise 2.1: Hello world as a function

Exercise 2.2: Hello world with parameters

Exercise 2.3: Strings and numbers

Exercise 2.4: Lists, tuples, and for loops

Exercise 2.5: The dictionary type

Lecture 3: Exceptions

Exercise 3: Introducing exceptions

Exercise 3.1: Functions calling functions

Exercise 3.2: Interpreting a traceback

Exercise 3.3: try:...except:... else:... finally:...

Exercise 3.4: Writing your own exceptions

Lecture 4: Using Modules

Exercise 4: Using modules

Exercise 4.1: Using the sys module

Exercise 4.2: Exploring the system using the os module

Exercise 4.3: Using the math module

Exercise 4.4: Working with dates and times

Exercise 4.5: Faking files with StringIO

Exercise 4.6: Using the pdb debugger

Exercise 4.7: Using introspection to explore hashlib

Exercise 4.8: Building your own module

Exercise 4.9: Building your own package