Programming in Python

Programming is a true twenty-first century skill, allowing you to really explore the wonderful – and crucial – world of data and computers. Aimed at beginners and near-beginners, this course teaches you basic principles of programming through hands-on exercises using real-world examples. It backs up this practical experience with a solid grounding in the logical thinking and structural approach to problem-solving which are second nature to the proficient programmer.

WHO SHOULD JOIN?
Any student or professional with little or no experience of programming who wants to learn its basic principles.

COURSE CONTENT
We use the programming language Python. Developed by Guido van Rossum in Amsterdam in the 1990s, this is widely used, easy to learn, accessible, available for many operating systems and possesses a large standard library of system functions. Moreover, we will be tailoring the exact content of the course to your progress. Bearing this in mind, topics we intend to cover include:

• Introduction to Python and its installation (Anaconda).
• The Python shell: print, operator, types, variables.
• Lists and loops.
• Functions, scope, import.
• File I/O (input/output), dictionaries, string manipulation.

The course culminates with an assignment using real-world data, so that by the end of it you have developed, written and presented a program of your own!

EXCURSION
Visit to the CWI, the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science and the birthplace of Python, followed by a social gathering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end if this course, you:

• Have gained experience in thinking in an abstract and logical way. 
• Are able to structurally solve simple computational problems.
• Understand the basic principles of programming.
• Have acquired some programming ability in Python.
• Have acquired some expertise in writing code and debugging programs. 

COURSE READING
Slides from the lectures and further reading will be provided during the course.

ABOUT THE PROFESSOR
Unmesh Joshi is a PhD student in Computer Science department. He works with Knowledge Graphs and deductive databases. Before starting the PhD, he had worked as a software developer for Amazon in Seattle. He has penchant for programming especially in C++ and Python and he volunteers as a teacher in his spare time.

“Programming : An essential skill today. Learn it with Python”