Beginner's Python

Session material and solutions for the Beginner's Python course at the AstraZeneca Code Club

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Navigation:

Introduction
Using This Repository
Quick Access to Resources
Session Summaries
Getting Help
Acknowledgements

Introduction

AstraZeneca Code Club's Beginner's Python course is designed for anyone completely new to Python or even programming in general. The course is self-contained and approaches the language in a slow and friendly manner, assuming no prior knowledge. All of our resources are free to be used by anyone—AZ employee or not. If you are an employee of AZ however, make sure you follow the Code Club group on Workplace for updates, support, and general Python fun.

Have fun learning!

Getting Started

Using Google Colab (Recommended)

To make learing Python as simple as possible, we have centred our course around the use of Google Colab, a free, interactive cloud environment for Python programming. You can get setup with Colab by visiting this link or searching for Google Colab (using Google Chrome, as this has the best compatibility, unsurprisingly). Sign up using a Google account and get started by going to File > New Python 3 Notebook.

All of our exercise and solution sheets also have links to open them in Colab. Once you are finished with your work, save these to your own drive using File > Save a Copy in Drive.

Using Anaconda Locally (Optional)

If you wish to avoid using Google Colab or want to code without an internet connection, you can setup up Anaconda on your computer to obtain a similiar, but local, experience. If you are on an AZ computer, use the software store to download this, and for personal computers visit this link. Once you have Anaconda installed, open the Anaconda Navigator (this is just a normal program you'll find in your start menu). Then, launch 'Jupyter Notebook' and click New > Python 3 Notebook. This will create a blank Python 3 notebook just like with Colab. You can still use our templates by downloading the raw file from GitHub, placing it in your documents, and navigating to it in Jupyter.

Using This Repository

Each session is contained in its own folder and includes the Powerpoint presentation given in the session, an answer template for the session exercises, a homework sheet to practice your skills, as well as corresponding solutions. All exercise and solutions notebooks will contain a link at the top of the page to open the document in Google Colab

The project solution is intended to be a model solution containing full documentation and testing. It is not expected for you to add such additional components to your solution but rather you should focus on the essential parts. A full solution is only provided as indication of the direction we want to be heading in and to build up experience with looking at source code.

Quick Access to Resources

We are still working on transferring the course to this repo, improving and standardising the content in the process. Links will appear here as soon as they are ready (which hopefully won't be long). If you want to be updated when changes are made, sign up to GitHub and click the watch icon at the top of the page (whilst you're at it, stars are appreciated!).

Presentations

Session One Presentation
Session Two Presentation
Session Three Presentation
Session Four Presentation
Session Five Presentation
Session Six Presentation
Session Seven Presentation
Session Eight Presentation

Templates

Session One Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Two Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Three Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Four Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Five Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Six Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Seven Blank Template and Filled Template
Session Eight Blank Template and Filled Template

Homework

Session One Exercises and Solutions
Session Two Exercises and Solutions
Session Three Exercises and Solutions
Session Four Exercises and Solutions
Session Five Exercises and Solutions
Session Six Exercises and Solutions
Session Seven Exercises and Solutions
Session Eight Exercises and Solutions

Session Summaries

Session 1

Get set up on Google Colab
Let Python 'talk' to you using the print() function
Use Python as a basic calculator
Give Python 'memory' using variables

Session 2

'Talk' back to Python using the input() function
Learn why variable types are important
Use lists to store multiple numbers
Compute attributes of lists such as total, length, minimum and maximum

Session 3

Learn how to compare two difference numbers with comparison operators
Combine conditions using Boolean operators
Add logic to your code using if, elif, and else
Use while loops to repeatedly run blocks of code

Session 4

Recap the use of lists in Python and use them to store more than just numbers
Learn how to access individual items of lists as well as extract sub-lists
Manipulate lists, adding, removing, and altering elements
Understand the difference and similarities between tuples and lists

Session 5

Learn how to use for loops to run code a predetermined number of times
Loop through lists and ranges of numbers
Escape loops using break and continue
Learn how to enumerate loops

Session 6

Create functions to modularise your code
Add function parameters
Apply recursive strategies to solve common problems
Understand the nature of variable scope

Session 7

Learn the limitations of lists/tuples
Use dictionaries to overcome these
Manipulate dictionaries, as with lists
Loop through dictionaries in multiple ways

Session 8

Read from a text file
Write text to a file
Learn how to raise errors
Use common built-in packages in your code

What now?

Checkout my other courses (written by me, in parallel with the AZ Code Club):

Practical Python — learn more Python by applying your skills to fun, real-life problems. Prerequisite: Beginner's Python or equivalent
Into the Tidyverse — learn your way around the tidyverse, a collection of R packages desgined to make data importing, manipulation, and visualisation as simple as possible. No prerequisites.
SQL for Scientists (coming soon)

Getting Help

If you are internal to AstraZeneca your best port of call for recieving help with this course is via the Code Club workplace page. We're a friendly bunch so don't feel scared to post a question even if it seems simple—likely there is someone else with the same issue.

Failing that, any of the core contributers will be happy to help or prompt you in the right direction.

If you are external to AstraZenca, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

On top of any support the AZ Code Club can offer, there are many open-source resources for learning Python. Here are some of our favourites:

Acknowledgements

The original contributers to this course are (in alphabetical order):

David McKinney
Mark Porter
Ryan Whittaker
Sam Bradley
Tim Hargreaves

The current version of the course is a vast redesign of the original material, with the addition of homework, solution notebooks, and content for three additional weeks. This adaptation was made solely by Tim Hargreaves, who also manages this repository.

mwyschan / beginners-python Goto Github PK