madecicco / introduction-to-python-for-scientists

course material for "Introduction to Python for Scientists"

Introduction to Python for Scientists

This course will cover the basics of Python programming and provide introductions to using the most important concepts and modules for data processing and data analysis, including numpy for processing large amounts of data; scipy for optimization, mathematical functions, and statistics; matplotlib for plotting; scikit-learn for machine-learning methods.

This course is being taught at Northern Arizona University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, in the 2016 Fall semester.

Some Useful Links

• Anaconda (probably the easiest way to install python)
• The Python Tutorial (the official tutorial)
• Python Standard Library (standard library resources)
• Style Guide for Python (how to do it)
• The Zen of Python (>> import this)

NEW: I have a book recommendation for you guys: Python for Scientists, John Stewart, Cambridge University Press (https://books.google.com/books/about/Python_for_Scientists.html?id=iekRBAAAQBAJ)

Timeline for Fall 2016:

Lecture	Topics	Files
Sept 2	no class homework: make python work on your computer! Feel free to use an integrated development environment (IDE), but you might as well just use a text editor and a terminal/shell (that's what I usually do).
Sept 9	some logistics, python basics, datatypes, strings	introduction 20160909_notes
Sept 16	lists, dictionaries, sets, control flow	20160916_notes assignment 1
Sept 23	file i/o, string formatting, errors, exceptions	20160923_notes assignment 2
Sept 30	functions, modules, namespaces, standard library: math, os, datetime, urllib2, subprocess	20160930_notes assignment 3
Oct 7	no class
Oct 14	numpy: basics, arrays	20161014_notes assignment 4
Oct 21	no class
Oct 28	plotting and fitting	20161028_notes assignment 5
Nov 4	interpolation	20161104_notes assignment 6
Nov 11	no class (Veteran's Day)
Nov 18	no class	assignment 7
Nov 25	no class (Thanksgiving)
Dec 2	machine learning (scikit-learn)	20161202_notes assignment 8
Dec 9	code optimization and multi-threading	20161209_notes assignment 9