Introduction to Python¶
Important Note: This course was originally designed and developed by Tom Donoghue. While lectures, assignments, exams and coding labs will be altered from the original run of the course in Fall 2018, tons of credit for this course is due to Tom for his awesome work getting this course off the ground.
The PDF slides from the start of the first class are available here: https://cogs18.github.io/assets/intro/01_welcome.pdf
Logistics¶
Who:
Instructor: Shannon Ellis
TAs: Paul & Sylvia
“IAs”: Jose & Taylor
Where:
Lectures M-Th @ 11AM - 12:20PM (remote)
Coding Lab Sections (Mon & Wed; 1 or 2 PM)
Course Website: https://cogs18.github.io
Piazza Page: https://piazza.com/ucsd/summer2020/cogs18
Expectations & Approach¶
Goal: to learn practical programming in Python
How: hands-on, community driven, skills based course, assignment & project driven
Lectures & Lab Sections will be used for interactive activities
Assignments, coding labs & a final project will be designed to get you coding
Why Learn Computation?¶
Computation is how things are done
Computation is the foundation of much of the modern world
What is Python¶
Python is a programming language
It is a way to do computation
It gets the computer to do the work for you
Python is an ecosystem
It is a culture of practice for computation
What does Python look like¶
variable_name = "variable name."
print(variable_name)
variable name.
a = 1
b = 2
c = a + b
print(c)
3
Why Choose Python?¶
Python is a powerful, well developed, and well supported tool
Python is general purpose, with an immense, multi-purpose ecosystem
Python is human focused, with a strong user & developer community
Python is open-source and accessible