Introduction to software development in Python#

Overview#

Python is one of the most popular programming languages worldwide and is used in all areas of science. As one of the most flexible languages it can be used to automate routine tasks, visualise data, process images and run statistical tests, along with many other applications.

The first day of this course will introduce you to the very basics of programming in Python and get you up and running on your own machine. No experience is necessary, all you need is a laptop you can install software on.

The second day of this course will provide some further Python training, and particularly introduce good practices that will pay dividends as you dive deeper into programming.

Contents#

Day 1

  • Introduction to Python

  • Variables

  • Data types

  • Loops

  • Conditional statements

  • List comprehension

  • Loading and saving data

  • Writing your first Python script

Day 2

  • Using third party libraries from pip and conda

  • Functions

  • Classes and objects

  • Errors and exceptions

  • Organising your Python project and importing functions

  • Documenting your code