Introduction to Python

Overview

This hands-on Python course is packed with more th an 25 exercises. Like many programming courses, it begins with a simple "Hello, World!" exercise. From there, students learn about literals, data types, and variables and to collect input from users. Once they have those basics down, students will learn about functions and modules, to work with the math and ra ndom modules, to format st rings, to index and slice sequences, and to work with the different types of ite rables. In the lesson on flow control, students will learn to write conditionals and l oops and work with ranges. They'll also learn to write basic list comprehensions. They will build upon this knowledge to learn how to read from and write to files. As part of this, they will learn to cr eate a small list maintenance application. Students will then learn to use exception handling both to catch unexpected errors and as a form of flow control. The course ends with a lesson on dates and times in Python. In addition to teaching how the time and datetime modules work, this lesson provides students with a broader understanding of how co mputers understand time.

Audience

The course is aimed at students new to the language who may or may not have experience with other programming languages.

Prerequisites

Some programming experience would be beneficial.

Course duration

4 Days

Course outline

1. Python Basics

Running Python

Hello, World!

Literals

Python Comments

Data Types

Variables

Writing a Python Module

print() Function

Named Arguments

Collecting User Input

Getting Help

2. Functions and Modules

Defining Functions
Variable Scope
Global Variables
Function Parameters
Returning Values
Importing Modules

3. Math

Arithmetic Operators
Modulus and Floor Division
Assignment Operators
Built-in Math Functions
The math Module
random Module
The Seeding

4. Python Strings

Quotation Marks and Special Characters
String Indexing
Slicing Strings
Concatenation and Repetition
Common String Methods
String Formatting
Built-in String Functions

5. Iterables: Sequences, Dictionaries, and Sets

Definitions
Sequences
Unpacking Sequences
Dictionaries
The len() Function
Sets

6. Flow Control

Conditional Statements
The is and is not Operators
Python's Ternary Operator
Loops in Python
The enumerate() Function
Generators
List Comprehensions
*args and **kwargs

7. File Processing

Opening Files
The os and os.path Modules

8. Exception Handling

Wildcard except Clauses
Getting Information on Exceptions
The else Clause
The finally Clause
Using Exceptions for Flow Control
Exception Hierarchy

9. Dates and Times

Understanding Time
The time Module
The datetime Module