Guided Introduction To Python

1. Guided Introduction To Python By Alfredo Alvarez

2. Class 1: Meet the instructor • Agenda: • Find out who the instructor is. • Talk about goals and why you want to learn python. • Discuss the materials and the methodology for the class. • Set up your equipment to start doing the online courses. • Get Started using the python interpreter

3. Instructor Bio • 5 years at Microsoft SDE(4 years), SDET Lead(1.5 years) • 2 years before that at Medical Startup • Uses Python to make games. • Currently Works at www.georiot.com

4. Really Quickly • Name • What are you currently doing? • Why are you interested in learning to code?

5. Objective • To guide python students while they use the most recent web courses to do their major studies of the python language.

6. How does it work ? • 10 Weekly meetings to discuss(1.5 hour sessions) to design goals, projects, talk about exercises and work. • 7 days a week support via email. • First class is free – other 9 are 25$ dollars each.

7. Materials. • Online • I recommend the CodeCademy course(http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python) • Udacityhttp://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs101/CourseRev/apr2012 • Free Books • Intro to python programming book • http://getpython3.com/diveintopython3/ • Thinking like a computer scientist • http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english2e/ • Data Structure and algorithms book • http://www.brpreiss.com/books/opus7/html/book.html • Webhttp://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/index.html • Learning python the hardway • http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

8. Methodology • The expectation is that the student starts the Codecademy course after the first meeting and brings doubts to the class. • We use the class to reinforce concepts • We also try to outline a small project to finish by the time the 10 weeks are done.

9. Installing python in your machine. • Download version 3.3.3 and make sure it install the IDE idle. • http://www.python.org/download/ • To validate the version of python run this on the python shell. • import sysprint sys.version || for 3.3.3 should read print(sys.version)

10. Hello World • First program ever run in any language in python it goes like this: • Print(“Hello World”);

11. How to get started • All programs in python start in the following way: if __name__ == "__main__": #code goes here #this is how you write comments.

12. Let’s take some input • To take input from the console we use the input command: • #text is your first variable declaration • text = input() • print(text)

13. Lets add a bit more to it • Lets make it look like a real program: print(“Enter your name?”); name = input(); #this is call concatenation makes pieces of text be one line Print(“Hello” + name);

14. Homework • Read From Dive into python: • Section 1.8 • Section 2.1 • From Codecademy • http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python?jump_to=4fcba68767e7c1000304119b • First 3 sections from python syntax module • Welcome to the flying circus • Variables • Data Types • For Questions • instructorcodebytheneedle@gmail.com