Phase 3 Lecture 1: Python Fundamentals and Data Structures

Objectives

By the end of today's lecture, you will be able to use the Python syntax to write a variety of basic coding structures and data structures.

Run pipenv install to install the dependencies and pipenv shell to enter the virtual environment.
Create variables in the fundamentals file.
- What is a variable?
- What are the different scopes you can assign to variables?
Write conditional statements in the fundamentals files.
- What is a conditional statement?
Write loops in the fundamentals file.
- What is a for loop? What is a foreach loop? What is a while loop?
- What is an infinite loop and why would we want to avoid it?
Write functions in the fundamentals file.
- What is a function?
- What are parameters and arguments? What is the return statement?
Write lists in the data-structures file.
- What is a list? Why don't we call it an array?
- What is list comprehension?
- What determines mutability vs. immutability for a data structure?
Write dictionaries in the data-structures file.
- What is a dictionary?
Write sets in the data-structures file.
- What is a set?
Write tuples in the data-structures file.
- What is a tuple?

Tomorrow's lecture will introduce object-oriented programming fundamentals in Python.