Introduction to Python¶

Important Note: This course was originally designed and developed by Tom Donoghue. While lectures, assignments, exams and coding labs will be altered from the original run of the course in Fall 2018, tons of credit for this course is due to Tom for his awesome work getting this course off the ground.

The PDF slides from the start of the first class are available here: https://cogs18.github.io/assets/intro/01_welcome.pdf

Logistics¶

Who:
- Instructor: Shannon Ellis
- TA: Yueying, Samyak, Saanya, Prasannakumaran, Kunal, & Jaymes
- IAs: Ana, Abhay, Ashesh, Doris, Elizabeth, Eric, Katherine, Keshav, Laura, Margaret, Nian-Nian, Nick, Nikita, Sandy, & Sophie
Where:
- Lectures TuTh @ 11AM (PETER 110) or 2PM (WLH 2001)
- Coding Lab Sections W 9-5; F 9-5 (CSB 115)
- Course Website: https://cogs18.github.io

Expectations & Approach¶

Goal: to learn practical programming in Python
How: hands-on, community driven, skills based course, assignment & project driven
Lectures & Lab Sections will be used for interactive activities
Assignments, coding labs & a final project will be designed to get you coding

Why Learn Computation?¶

Computation is how things are done

Computation is the foundation of much of the modern world

What is Python¶

Python is a programming language
- It is a way to do computation
- It gets the computer to do the work for you

Python is an ecosystem
- It is a culture of practice for computation

What does Python look like¶

In [ ]:

variable_name = "variable name."
print(variable_name)

In [ ]:

a = 1
b = 2

c = a + b

print(c)

Why Choose Python?¶

Python is a powerful, well developed, and well supported tool

Python is general purpose, with an immense, multi-purpose ecosystem

Python is human focused, with a strong user & developer community

Python is open-source and accessible

This is a Jupyter Notebook¶

Uses in COGS 18:

lecture notes
assignments
coding labs
final project/exam