First Steps with Python

14 Feb 2024, 10:00 → 16 Feb 2024, 14:00 Europe/Berlin

Online

organized in cooperation of Helmholtz Federated IT Services (HIFIS) and Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy (HIDA)

 

First steps with Python 

This course covers the basic language and programming concepts. This fundamental knowledge is to be used as a starting point for self-guided learning during and beyond the course time. 

All workshop days cover alternating sequences of theoretical input and hands-on exercises, during which the instructors are available for quick feedback and advice.

Course Times

Feb 14, 2024, 10:00am - 04:00pm

Feb 15, 2024, 10:00am - 04:00pm

Feb 16, 2024, 10:00am - 02:00pm

 

NOTE: Registration will open January 18th, 2024, 12 pm. 

Additional Information

The course content is coordinated, so we strongly recommend that you do not miss any part of the course. To receive a certificate we expect full time and active participation.

Your registration for this course is binding. If you need to leave/miss the course for a period of time, please let us know in advance.

There is no waiting list for this course! If someone withdraws from a course, their place is automatically reopened. We therefore advise you to keep an eye on the registration in case the course is full and you would like to attend. Also, this course will be offered again in the future - you can check our HIDA Course Catalog for updates. 

This course is free of charge. 

Wednesday 14 February

10:00 → 10:15 Welcome & Organization

10:15 → 11:30 Lessons: Lesson I

10:15 Setting up a Python Project

You learn how a basic project is set up and explore two approaches to Python programming: using the REPL and writing Python files.

10:30 Variables, Assignments and Data Types

Get to know the basic constructs for storing and manipulating information in a program. Understand what data types are and how they influence how information is processed.

11:15 Importing

Since projects often get distributed over multiple files or require code from other sources, we will investigate how to import code from other files or libraries.

11:30 → 12:30 Lunch

12:30 → 14:00 Lessons: Lesson II

12:30 Conditionals

It is often necessary to check conditions and act accordingly. This section will cover expressing those conditions and how to control in which order they get checked and how to react to them.

13:15 While-Loops

Loops are a good choice when it comes to repeating actions. In this section, the "while"-loop will be introduced as a method of repeating code based on condition.

14:00 → 14:30 Coffee

14:30 → 16:00 Exercises: Exercise I

14:30 Exercise: Basics

In this exercise session we will write our first own programs to solve small problems. The focus is on gaining experience with the use of assignments, conditionals and loops and fostering structure-oriented thinking.

Thursday 15 February

10:00 → 10:15 Recap from Day 1

10:15 → 11:30 Lessons: Lesson III

10:15 Functions

Splitting parts of programs off into self contained, reusable blocks is a good way to handle complexity and allow for parts of a program to also be used in other projects.

11:15 For-Loops

Introducing the second kind of loop, the "for"-loop is well suited to iterate over a set of data or repeat a set of instructions a given amount of times.

11:30 → 12:30 Lunch

12:30 → 14:00 Exercises: Exercise II

12:30 Exercise: Increased Complexity

Further training the use of the basic structures to solve increasingly complex problems. Planning approaches to solve tasks that are increasingly hard to solve by "just doing it".

14:00 → 14:30 Coffee

14:30 → 16:00 Exercises: Exercise III

14:30 Exercise: Functions

In addition to the basic concepts we will now also use functions to better structure and sub-divide our programs, enabling us to solve increasingly complex tasks.

Friday 16 February

10:00 → 10:15 Recap from Day 2

10:15 → 11:30 Lessons: Lesson IV

10:15 Tuples

Tuples are a great way to bundle up multiple values. Learn how to employ them and take advantage of Python's automatic Packing/unpacking feature.

10:45 Lists

Another very useful data type is the List, a sorted collection of data. In this section we introduce some basic functionality and learn where to find more detailed information for this data type and many others.

11:15 Finalizing the Project

We will put some finishing touches on our example project to make it ready for a first release. Further, possible future learning paths will be outlined.

11:30 → 12:30 Lunch

12:30 → 14:00 Exercises: Exercise IV

12:30 Exercise: Larger Programs

In this exercise part we will encounter increasingly complex tasks that also require the use of lists, tuples, other loop structures and imports. The required approaches need to become increasingly more structured and require subdividing into multiple files.