Seminar on python 2013-01-21

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Seminar on python at 14:00 in 26C401. Optional: when you wish to play around during the seminar, I recommend that you install bpython or ipython notebook- though you can also get along with only a version of python like 2.7 or 3.3. The topics to be covered are:

• dynamic and strong typing
• decimal class
• lists
• automatic unpacking (see also this tutorial and the zip function )
• dictionaries
• list/dictionary comprehensions (bpython session)
• bpython / ipython
• ipython notebook (notebook; see also this example)
• (xkcd) plots using matplotlib and numpy
• tools for statistics (scipy stats, pandas)
• csvreader
• reading/writing data: files, databases (sqlite3) made easy, hdf5 (sqlite examples, peewee examples)
• doctest (example square.py; see also this online course)

Since I am no expert, not all topics will (can) be covered in depth, but they will all be covered to a certain extent. Please let me know if you think something important is missing from here.

More links

• A Crash Course in Python for Scientists by Rick Muller
• Faster python: e.g. cython
• Generators and iterators
• ((Im)mutable) objects and scope
• pony (alternative to peewee) for communication with databases; be careful: see also 'Never do this' on this page
• Using the lambda keyword
• functools for higher order functions
• itertools for efficient looping
• A python spreadsheet: pyspread
• Interacting with ROOT from python using rootpy
• Useful functions
• More nice things about python
• What you should never do in python
• Presentation on why python is awesome
• Why count from 0, not 1?
• Online course (basics)
• Online course (assumes basics)
• Another online course (basics)

If you happen to have another link that may interest python users, please let me know.