Python Essentials

This repository contains a collection of Jupyter/IPython Notebooks introducing fundamental programming concepts in Python. These concepts are common to many programming languages, and can be applied in other languages with different syntax. The notebooks are intended to guide students in learning the basic functionality of programming in Python, as well as introduce some of the most useful Python libraries.

To begin make sure you have setup your programming environment correctly, in order to do this read the getting started guide. After that you are ready to start working through the core notebooks zero to thirteen. Finally some bonus material is provided about code style, databases, modules, and python philosophy.

Notebooks:

0. Introduction to Jupyter Notebooks
1. Hello World - first program
2. Datatypes, strings, numbers and variables
3. Lists, tuples, and sets
4. If statements, and conditional logic
5. Loops, and user input
6. Dictionaries
7. Functions introduction
8. More Functions
9. Classes and Object Oriented Programming
10. Handling Exceptions
11. Interfacing with external files
12. Numpy library
13. Matplotlib Library

Bonus notebooks:

• Bonus - Coding Style PEP8
• Bonus - Databases and data persistence
• Bonus - Importing modules
• Bonus - The Zen Of Python

Getting Started

You may follow this guide using either Google Colab or a local Python installation. The tutorial to get started with either option can be found below.

Using Google Colab

Provided you have a Google account, you can use Google Colab to view, edit and complete these notebooks. You can even clone this repository directly into your Google Drive with the following steps: File > Open notebook > GitHub > Paste this repository's URL > Press enter > Select notebook.

Using your computer (run code locally)

1. Install Python

If you haven't installed Python yet, installing Anaconda is highly recommended. Anaconda is an open source, enterprise-ready Python distribution for large-scale data processing, predictive analytics, and scientific computing. Anaconda includes an easy-to-use installer for almost every platform, drastically reducing the burden of setting up the environment. In addition, it comes packaged with commonly used Python libraries.

Anaconda Python can be downloaded from this webpage.

2. Download the tutorial notebooks

If you are familiar with git version control and have git installed then you can download the relevant course notebooks by doing a git clone:

git clone https://github.com/joaopfonseca/introduction_to_programming.git

Otherwise navigate to the following webpage (where you are reading this readme):

https://github.com/joaopfonseca/python-essentials

And select Clone or download, then download the zip file and extract.

3. Running Jupyter Notebooks

1. Open Anaconda Navigator;
2. Select Jupyter Notebook;
   • Note: The Jupyter notebook will launch in a browser.
3. Navigate to the directory of the unzipped or cloned course files;
4. Select the notebook you want.

4. Start learning

You are now setup to start working your way through the numbered notebooks in the Jupyter Notebook browser. Start with an introduction to Jupyter by selecting 00_introduction_to_jupyter_notebooks.ipynb and work through in order.

If you are still curious after working through all the notebooks have a look at the extra notebooks for useful extra information.

Minimum requirements

If you have installed Anaconda or opened Google Colab as described above you will have fulfilled the basic requirements necessary to begin working. Otherwise, please ensure you have the following installed before starting the course:

• Python 3.x (2.x would work as well)
• IPython 4.x (with notebook support) or Jupyter:
• matplotlib library
• NumPy library

To check if these are installed you can run the following:

• python -V
• ipython -V
• pip show matplotlib
• pip show numpy

Acknowledgements

This repository was adapted from teach_python_in_notebooks by William Grimes.

License and Sharing Material

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.