All files included for "Python Programming for Beginners" book.
Immerse yourself in learning Python and introductory data analytics with this book’s project-based approach. Through the structure of a 10-week coding bootcamp course, you’ll learn key concepts and gain hands-on experience through weekly projects.
Each chapter in this book is presented as a full week of topics, with Monday through Thursday covering specific concepts, leading up to Friday, when you are challenged to create a project using the skills learned throughout the week. Topics include Python basics and essential intermediate concepts such as list comprehension, generators and iterators, understanding algorithmic complexity, and data analysis with pandas. From beginning to end, this book builds up your abilities through exercises and challenges, culminating in your solid understanding of Python.
Challenge yourself with the intensity of a coding bootcamp experience or learn at your own pace. With this hands-on learning approach, you will gain the skills you need to jumpstart a new career in programming or further your current one as a software developer.
- Understand beginning and more advanced concepts of the Python language
- Be introduced to data analysis using pandas, the Python Data Analysis Library
- Walk through the process of interviewing and answering technical questions
- Create real-world applications with the Python language
- Learn how to use the Anaconda, Jupyter Notebook, and the Python Shell
The first week of any course is always slow. It will encompass setting up your environment, information about the book itself and python, terminal commands, how to use the tools you’ve downloaded and eventually end in creating a small 7-10-line project. Now the project will be basic but will incorporate concepts that readers won’t understand yet. The reason for this is to get you to see the power of Python in action, which will create a desire to read further.
- Monday: Introduction
- Tuesday: Setting Up Anaconda and Python
- Wednesday: How to Use the Terminal
- Thursday: Using Jupyter Notebook
- Friday: Creating Your First Program
This week begins the readers journey into becoming a Python programmer. They will begin to understand basic syntax, what kinds of data types there are, how to save information into variables, and how to manipulate strings. The Friday project session will take all these lessons and walk the reader through making a receipt printing program that neatly prints out the information saved in variables. The most important lesson this week will be variables, which will encompass most pages to deeply explain why they are important and how they are used.
- Monday: Comments & Basic Data Types
- Tuesday: Variables
- Wednesday: Working with Strings
- Thursday: String Manipulation
- Friday: Creating a Receipt Printing Program
Having already understood how to save information into variables, this week will begin to make use of the conditional statements. The reader will have the ability to create a working calculator at the end of the week, while taking in two numbers and choosing to add, delete, multiply, or divide them.
- Monday: User Input and Type Converting
- Tuesday: If Statements
- Wednesday: Elif Statements
- Thursday: Else Statements
- Friday: Creating a Calculator
Lists are one of the most important concepts of Python, which is why they are covered over the course of two days. The ability to add, read, and remove information from lists is pivotal going forward. The other major concept covered is loops. Again, one of the more important programming concepts it will be covered over two days with two separate types of loops. A small working game of Hangman will be created by the end using both concepts.
- Monday: Lists
- Tuesday: For Loops
- Wednesday: While Loops
- Thursday: Working with Lists
- Friday: Creating Hangman
This concept has always been one of the tougher for new programmers to learn, which is why it has a full week by itself. Readers will be able to understand why functions are useful, how they are used, and when you should use them. We will then create a full working shopping cart in Python using functions to add, remove, and show items within the cart.
- Monday: Creating and Calling Functions
- Tuesday: Parameters
- Wednesday: Return Statement
- Thursday: Scope
- Friday: Creating a Shopping Cart
Most of the major concepts have already been covered in previous weeks, so this week will focus on expanding the reader’s knowledge of data types and collections in Python, as well as how to use files. We will program a fake database back-end using Python and CSV files together.
- Monday: Dictionaries
- Tuesday: Working with Dictionaries
- Wednesday: Tuples, Sets, Frozensets
- Thursday: Reading and Writing Files
- Friday: Creating a User Database with CSV Files
As hard as functions are to understand, OOP with classes is even tougher. This full week will cover what OOP is, how and why it is used, and eventually go over how to create a full-fledged blackjack game together.
- Monday: Creating and Instantiating a Class
- Tuesday: Attributes
- Wednesday: Methods
- Thursday: Inheritance
- Friday: Creating Blackjack
This week begins the advanced section of Python, which will cover items that your everyday developer uses to make their lives easier. The understanding of this chapter will help for solidifying the reader’s computer science skills.
- Monday: List Comprehension
- Tuesday: Lambda Functions
- Wednesday: Map, Filter, and Reduce
- Thursday: Recursive Functions and Memoization
- Friday: Writing a Binary Search
This week is the continuation of advanced python concepts and will cover more topics that a developer has to understand on the job. At the end of the week several interview tips, questions, and more information will be showcased, as well as how to answer them.
- Monday: Generators and Iterators
- Tuesday: Decorators
- Wednesday: Modules
- Thursday: Understanding Algorithmic Complexity
- Friday: Interview Prep
The final chapter covering the Python concepts will give readers an introduction into what it takes to be a data analysis. It will cover libraries used in the industry, as well as APIs. By the end users will be able to understand how to analyze data using Pandas.
- Monday: Virtual Environments and Requests Module
- Tuesday: Pandas
- Wednesday: Data Visualization
- Thursday: Web Scraping
- Friday: Website Analysis