lecture10

Lecture 10: Introduction to Python

This section introduces the last of the programming languages we'll be using this semester: Python. These two lectures introduce you to the main syntax, data types, data structures, and programming structures in Python. We've grouped this intro to Python with the command line material, as these tools often operate hand-in-hand for computational biology projects. We'll be continuing to develop your Python skills throughout the rest of the quarter, so a good grasp on the fundamentals in this section will be especially important. We've included a number of practice exercises in this section to help you gauge your understanding of the material.

Learning objectives

After this section, you should be able to:

• Write and execute Python code using Jupyter notebooks
• Manipulate basic data types and structures in Python
• Apply the general programming structures of for loops and defining functions
• Work with Python modules and system commands

Class materials

• We'll be using Jupyter notebooks as our interface for Python, so we recommend installing Anaconda (this also installs many of the other packages we'll be using in Python this semester).
• The content for this lecture (as well as lecture 11) is contained in the Jupyter notebook lecture10.ipynb located in this directory. The example code and practice exercises are executable as code cells in that notebook. For additional background on Jupyter notebooks, please see this link.

Reminders

• Homework deadlines:
  • Homework 3 (genomic data in R) was due Tuesday, October 28 at noon.
  • Homework 4 (command line) is due on Thursday, November 7 at noon, and includes material from lectures 9 and 12. This assignment will be available in GitHub Classroom on Tuesday, November 5.
  • Homework 5 (intro to python) will also be due at Thursday, November 7 at noon, and includes material from lectures 10 and 11. This assignment will be available in GitHub Classroom on Thursday, October 31.