Introduction to Python

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Royal Statistical Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social sciences.

Physical Description:

Online course : (24 hr.)

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publishing 2020

Summary:

Perfect for beginners, this course teaches the fundamentals of Python programming through taught materials and practical example. This course will help learners to: •Develop skills with core elements of the Python programming language and gain an appreciation of how these can feed into social scientific work (e.g., researching with digital data). •See how to make methodologically appropriate decisions when designing and developing research where programming skills are deployed, including harvesting, and organizing data. •Understand how to approach a social science research question using Python and have the capacity to devise a solution to such problems where programming skills can be deployed to reveal social scientific insight. To reinforce these learning objectives we include a number of structured activities to follow on from the learning objectives. MODULE ONE: GETTING STARTED WITH PYTHON AND UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS •Why use Python? - Introduction to the course and a short explanation of the value of Python for data analysis and social science. •Installing Python. •Working in the shell and using an editor. •Equality and comparison - difference between assignment and equality, using comparison operators. •Assigning variables - assigning one or more variables, overwriting and modifying variables. MODULE TWO: DATA TYPES AND DATA CONTAINERS •Data types - the three different data types and operations that can be performed on them. •Lists - creating and manipulating lists, list functions and mapping. •String formatting - string use and manipulation in Python. • Tuples - function and use of the tuple data container. •Dictionaries - Function and use of dictionaries. MODULE THREE: CONTROL STATEMENTS AND DEALING WITH FILES •IF, ELSE and ELIF - what IF, ELSE and ELIF statements are and how to use them, e.g using ELSE to handle when a condition is not met. •Loops - constructing and using loops and IF statements to check conditions and change the behavior of a program. •And/or - Using and/or conditions. •Dealing with files - Opening, reading and closing files. MODULE FOUR: WRITING SCRIPTS, FUNCTIONS, CLASSES AND WORKING IN THE WEB •Working with the web - pulling data from web content. •Writing functions - purpose and use of functions. •Writing scripts in Python - splitting code into multiple scripts. •Objects and Classes - creating a class and using objects. •A brief guide to thinking like a programmer - considerations when planning tasks to do using code, task flow etc.

ISBN:

1-5297-5428-3

OCLC:

1200116907