Introduction to Programming in Python

This lesson is an introduction to programming in Python for people with little or no previous programming experience. It uses plotting as its motivating example, and is designed to be used in both Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry workshops. This lesson references the Jupyter Notebook, but can be taught using a regular Python interpreter as well. Please note that this lesson uses Python 3 rather than Python 2.

Schedule

		Setup	Dowload files used on the lesson.
Day 1	08:00	1. Running and Quitting	How can I run Python programs?
	08:15	2. Variables and Assignment	How can I store data in programs?
	08:40	3. Data Types and Type Conversion	What kinds of data do programs store? How can I convert one type to another?
	09:00	4. Built-in Functions and Help	How can I use built-in functions? How can I find out what they do? What kind of errors can occur in programs?
	09:25	5. Lists	How can I store multiple values?
	09:45	6. For-Loops	How can I make a program do many things?
	10:15	7. Morning Coffee	Break
	10:30	8. Libraries	How can I use software that other people have written? How can I find out what that software does?
	10:50	9. Writing Functions	How can I create my own functions?
	11:20	10. Variable Scope	How do function calls actually work? How can I determine where errors occurred?
	11:40	11. Wrap-Up	What have we learned? What else is out there and where do I find it?
	12:00	12. Lunch	Break
	13:00	13. Conditionals	How can programs do different things for different data?
	13:25	14. Reading Tabular Data into DataFrames	How can I read tabular data?
	14:00	15. Pandas DataFrames	How can I do statistical analysis of tabular data?
	14:30	16. Plotting	How can I plot my data?
	15:15	17. Coffee Break	Break
	15:30	18. Programming Style	How can I make my programs more readable? How do most programmers format their code? How can programs check their own operation?
	16:00	19. Wrap-Up	What have we learned? What else is out there and where do I find it?
	16:15	20. Feedback	How did the class go?
	16:30	Finish

The actual schedule may vary slightly as the workshop progresses.