Welcome to Python!

Below is a schematic of what the course will look like, including instructors for each day. It provides info that complements the info on the D-Lab website.

Getting ready

We'll use the most recent version of BCE for VirtualBox. Links and instructions are here. We'll use the Summer 2015 version (so if you have a previous version installed, please upgrade!). The instructions recommend using an older (tested) version of VirtualBox, but I've been happily using version 5.0 which should have better performance on Windows – VirtualBox.

And, while you're looking ahead to our training, check out our Learning Resources.

Agenda and Instructors

Please note that the class will proceed at the pace of the students. Topics below are meant as guidelines, and are not guaranteed!

Monday, August 17 (Programming FUNdamentals)

Instructor: @deniederhut

Learn the fundamentals of unix systems, the command line, scripts, and version control.

• Unix Fundamentals
• Git Fundamentals on GitHub

Tuesday, August 18

Instructor: @davclark

• Text analysis of Hip Hop lyrics with Python
• Basic operations
• Working with strings (text)
• Reusable code
• Click here for the class Etherpad

Materials:

• HipHopathy
• NBViewer
• Our Project

Wednesday, August 19

Instructor: @marwahaha

• Variables
• Modules
• Functions
• Web-scraping
• Click here for the class Etherpad
• Continue using resources from Tuesday!

Thursday, August 20

Instructor: @deniederhut

• Containers
• Loops (for and while)
• Control
• APIs, Twitter, and Bots
• Click here for the class Etherpad
• Continue using resources from Tuesday and Wednesday!

Friday, August 21

Instructor: @rdhyee

• Click here for the class Etherpad
• Working with tabular data, standard library vs. Pandas (the standard documentation is a bit tough, so I'd recommend this book)
• For plotting, the place to start is matplotlib, but Seaborn looks nicer by default (matplotlib is also covered well in the above-mentioned book).
• Scrape the web
• Dav's current project to scrape the CA Dept. of Ed.
• Saving time with NLTK

Join The Community!

We keep track of our occasional Social Computing meetings on our mailing list – look in the sidebar, or above on mobile/narrow browsers.

Upcoming events, and links to our mailing list and calendar, along with our sister organization, The Hacker Within, are also available in the side bar at the right. All are welcome! Sometimes there are better resources (like Stack Overflow, or even just Google), but the Berkeley Python community is always happy to get you moving in the right direction.