Hands-On Python I & II

Are you curious about Python and programming in general? Are you new to programming? Start with the Hands-on Python Tutorial. Python is a great first programming language, and a language to keep using. In the tutorial you interactively try small bits, get immediate feedback, and build up your understanding and ability. Early examples are text manipulation in a mad-lib generator and graphical animation, which you should understand, play with, and extend. During the tutorial help will always be available as you work at your own rate. You are welcomed to continue with more of the tutorial after PyCon.

Presenter

The presenter is Dr. Andrew Harrington, Director of Academic Programs in Computer Science, Loyola University Chicago. His original area was mathematics, and his interests morphed through complex analysis, to fractals, image compression, graphics, and into programming languages and algorithms. A current interest of his is to get middle school and high school students to merge the study of algebra and geometry with an understanding of algorithms in Python.

Requirements

Own computer, or one shared between a pair of people, with the full Python installed, including Idle. There are tutorial versions for both Python 2.6 and for 3.0. For consistency please come with Python version 3.0 installed. Also download and unzip the example program file archive. In case internet connection is disrupted, it may also be helpful to download and unzip a copy of the tutorial text archive. There is are more detailed Windows-centric instructions in Section 1.2 of the online Tutorial, and help and will be available in class.

Mac and Linux users may find their machines start with a partial Python installation: Look at the python.org site for instructions on loading the full Python distribution, including Idle. Windows users generally need to download the Python installer from python.org.

Outline

This tutorial is totally interactive and self-paced. The timing will completely depend on the person. Participants are welcomed to start the easy beginning descriptive parts at home, and concentrate on the harder later creative parts when individual help is available at the Tutorial. Participants can do more or fewer of the more creative exercises. A person just working for 6 hours on Tutorial Day with a partner might get into Loops And Sequences and understand the use of strings, loops, functions, and a dictionary in a basic mad-lib example program, and also be able to modify the example program effectively. A faster person, or one skipping a number of the exercises, or one reading the beginning part ahead of time to get a jump start, or one who had seen a little bit of programming in another language, might get into graphics. Likely all will have some of the later parts, like dynamic web pages, to continue with after the Tutorials.