Python Programming Essentials

Course Objectives

Throughout the course students will learn to write essential Python scripts using the most current and efficient skills and techniques.  This course is about 50% hands-on lab to 50% lecture ratio, combining engaging, informed instructor presentations, demonstrations and discussions with extensive machine-based student labs and practical project work.

Working within in an engaging, hands-on learning environment, guided by our expert instructor, students will learn to:

• Create working Python scripts following best practices
• Use python data types appropriately
• Read and write files with both text and binary data
• Search and replace text with regular expressions
• Get familiar with the standard library and its work-saving modules
• Use lesser known but powerful Python data types
• Create "real-world", professional Python applications
• Work with dates, times, and calendars
• Know when to use collections such as lists, dictionaries, and sets
• Understand Pythonic features such as comprehensions and iterators
• Write robust code using exception handling

Course Prerequisites

This is an introductory-level Python course geared for experienced users who want to use Python in web development projects, or  system administrators and web site administrators who want to use Python to support their server installations, as well as anyone else who wants to automate or simplify common tasks with the use of Python scripts. Basic familiarity with any programming or scripting language would be helpful, along with a working, user-level knowledge of Unix/Linux, Mac, or Windows.

Course Agenda

1. An overview of Python

• What is Python?
• Python Timeline
• Advantages/Disadvantages of Python
• Getting help with pydoc

2. The Python Environment

• Starting Python
• Using the interpreter
• Running a Python script
• Python scripts on Unix/Windows
• Editors and IDEs

3. Getting Started

• Using variables
• Builtin functions
• Strings
• Numbers
• Converting among types
• Writing to the screen
• Command line parameters

4. Flow Control

• About flow control
• White space
• Conditional expressions
• Relational and Boolean operators
• While loops
• Alternate loop exits

5. Array types

•  About array types
• Lists and list methods
• Tuples
• Indexing and slicing
• Iterating through a sequence
• Sequence functions,keywords, and operators
• List comprehensions
• Nested sequences

6. Working with files

• File overview
• Opening a text file
• Reading a text file
• Writing to a text file
• Screen output without formatting
• Raw (binary) data

7. Dictionaries and Sets

• About dictionaries
• Creating dictionaries
• Iterating through a dictionary
• About sets
• Creating sets
• Working with sets

8. Functions

•  About sequences
• Function parameters
• Global variables
• Global scope
• Returning values 

9. Sorting

• The sorted() function
• Alternate keys
• Lambda functions
• Sorting collections
• Reverse sorting

10. Errors and Exception Handling

• Syntax errors
• Exceptions
• Using try/catch/else/finally
• Handling multiple exceptions
• Ignoring exceptions

11. Creating and using Modules

• What is a module?
• The import statement
• Module search path
• Creating Modules
• Function and Module aliases
• Using packages

12. Regular Expressions

• RE syntax overview
• Basic patterns
• RE Objects
• Searching and matching
• Compilation flags
• Grouping
• Replacing text
• Splitting a string

13. Using the Standard Library

• The sys module
• Launching external programs
• Walking directory trees
• Grabbing web pages
• Sending e-mail
• Paths, directories, and filenames
• Dates and times
• Zipped archives

14. An Introduction to Python classes

• About o-o programming
• Defining classes
• Constructors
• Instance methods
• Instance data
• Class methods and data
• Inheritance

Course Materials

Student Materials: Each student will receive a Student Guide with course notes, code samples, software tutorials, diagrams and related reference materials and links (as applicable). Our courses also include step by step hands-on lab instructions and and solutions, clearly illustrated for users to complete hands-on work in class, and to revisit to review or refresh skills at any time. Students will also receive the project files (or code, if applicable) and solutions required for the hands-on work.