This two-day class will introduce Python, the "batteries included" programming language designed to emphasize code readability. Learners will gain the working knowledge needed to start programming, debugging and using Python in everyday tasks.
Objectives
We'll cover the core Python language and the standard library in detail. This course will cover various skills including text manipulation, modular programming, working with and retrieving data, interacting with files on your computer, and using some of the more popular third-party libraries (and getting them installed when and where we need them). The goal is to get participants up and running with Python in as short a time as possible.
Activities
Students will learn the basics of writing and running Python scripts. We will cover topics for people completely new to programming along with comparisons and contrasts to other programming languages. Everything from "OMG white space?!?!" to ways to manipulate the language into a very terse format (also why you might not want to do that) to cool tricks we can do with the simplest, most basic Python data-types.
The Python standard library likely has everything you need, but we won't stop there. We'll make use of some of the more popular third-party libraries, which will also let us make use of the tool pip for grabbing libraries from the Python Package Index (PyPI).
You will leave the class with working sample code that you developed that is (hopefully) helpful in your day-to-day job.
