In the first week we will be looking at the fundamentals of programming in python. Beginning with the very basics and moving towards writing basic scripts.
This lecture include an introduction to the module and some background on python. It continues with a rough model of what we mean by a dynamically typed language and some detail about what is happening behind the scenes when the python interpreter executes even the simplest of python expressions.
In python, compound statements allow programmers to specify blocks of code which should be executed under certain conditions or in certain contexts. Compound data types enable programmers to create complex, mutable data structures.
The first lab exercise introduces the IDLE environment and covers the very basic concepts such as literals, operators, variables and assignment. We will begin with simple, one-line expressions in the python interpreter and move on to develop more complex python programmes in our own modules.
The second set of exercises looks at the more complex data types and the difference between mutable and immutable types. Combining what we have learned into some short programmes.
This final session of week 1 includes a few coding challenges that use what we have learned so far.