Welcome to ELEX 4653

This course is a short introduction to the Python programming language.  Our first lecture is Monday April 24 at 11:30 in SW3-1710.  Labs will start the first week (Monday) in SW1-2560.

Lab Schedule Changes

There have been changes to the scheduling of the Set 4L and 4S labs to ensure each set has one lab following each lecture.  Please see the on-line timetable for the current schedule. 

In particular, the Wednesday 8:30 lab has been moved to Thursday and the other Thursday lab shifted.

There will likely be additional changes to the times of the Thursday labs for the next week or two.  These will be announced in class and on the course web site.

Time Change for Set 4S Thursday Labs

Starting Thursday May 4 (next week) Set 4S will have their Thursday labs at 8:30.  This change may not show up on your on-line timetables.

Material to Read for Lab 2

For Lab 2, there is a bit more information that we weren't able to cover in the lectures that you'll need to know for the lab.

Please read about it ahead of time and Dave will talk about it for a few minutes during the lab if there are still questions.

From: "A Whirlwind Tour of Python" pages 43-45 in the PDF version (or notebook "08-Defining-Functions.ipynb" in the notebook version):

• Default Argument Values
• *args and **kwargs: Flexible Arguments
• Anonymous (lambda) Function (this is for the "optional" part of Lab 2)

Presentations

As an exercise in finding and learning to use Python packages on your own, you must prepare a 5- or 10-minute presentation on a Python package of your choice (5 minutes if presenting by yourself, 10 if in groups of two). The presentations will be made to the other students in your lab set during your scheduled lab on May 15 or 16. You may choose a standard library package that has not been used in the course or you can pick one of the many packages available from the Python Package index: https://pypi.python.org/pypi

To avoid duplication and to make sure the package can be reasonably presented in the time allotted, during your lab on May 10-12 you must inform your lab instructor of the package you will be presenting.

You may use your own laptop or the instructor's workstation for your presentation.  If the latter, tell the instructor if you need package(s) installed for your presentation.

Presentations should be submitted as Jupyter notebooks with marked-up text and executable code.  They should be submitted to the appropriate dropbox before your presentation and include:

• the name of the package and links to the relevant web site(s)
• installation instructions (e.g. using "pip install pyqrcode")
• a brief (1 paragraph) explanation of what the package does and why you chose it
• document the most important parts of the package (classes, methods, functions, ...)
• an example or two of how it can be used

After your presentation the class (or the instructor) will ask you a question or two about the package.

Time your presentation beforehand and make sure you do not exceed your time limit.

The presentation will be marked as follows:

• the presentation includes all required elements
• the explanation of what the package does is clear
• the example is understandable and demonstrates important feature(s) of the package
• the response to the question(s) are clear and correct
• the presentation is not too long

Optional Lab Questions

Each lab is marked out of 1 (1 if all checks pass, 0 if any fail). 

Each optional mark question in Labs 1 to 5 will count as a bonus of 0.25 of a lab. Fractional marks will be truncated.

The final lab mark (worth 40% of the final mark) will be computed as:

  40% * floor( sum(labmark[0:6]) + 0.25*sum(labmark[0:5] )/6

In other words, if you completed four bonus questions can make up for one failed lab.

How to Find Packages

There are dozens of built-in packages, most of which we have not covered in the lecture or labs.  See the Python library reference.

There are over a hundred packages included in the default Anaconda installation (e.g. on the lab PCs) and hundreds more easily installed using the Anaconda Navigator interface.  See the Anaconda package list.

There are thousands of packages that can be easily installed from the Python Package Index (PyPI) using the pip command-line utility.  See the PyPI web site.

Or use your favourite search engine to search for "python package for X" where X is some topic of interest to you.

Hint for Optional Question in Lab 5

For the optional question in Lab 5, you should use the .close() or .flush() method on the file after you're finished writing to it.  This will allow the testing code to read your file contents correctly.

Learning Objectives

Lab 1 - Basic Syntax

• write assignment, for-loop and if/else statements
• create constant scalars, lists and tuples
• extend() and append() to lists

Lab 2 - Container Classes and Functions

• use range expression
• create and iterate over strings, list, tuples, dictionaries and sets
• test for presence of an item in a container
• write a function that takes arguments and returns results

Lab 3 - packages and exceptions

• import a package, optionally using an alias
• sort using a function to determine the sort order
• call a method of an object
• get and set an attribute of an object

Lab 4 - iterators, generators and list comprehensions

• use a list comprehension to create a list
• write a generator function

Lab 5 - File I/O and Regular Expressions

• open/close and read/write lines from/to files
• write a regular expression (pattern)
• use the the re.findall() function (or compile().search()) to test for and extract a match to a regular expression

Lab 6 - Numpy

• create a numpy array (using constants or a range)
• change the dimensions of an array (reshape)
• use operators on combinations of arrays and scalars
• compute the transpose and inverse of a matrix

Lab 5 Deadline Extended (and new marking code)

The marking code for Lab 5 behaved differently on Unix (including Mac) and Windows systems.   A new version (version 3) with marking code that works on both is available.  If you had a problem with Lab 5 marking you can copy the new marking code cell into your notebook.   The submission deadline has been extended to Friday, May 19.

Please check your marks

All marks have been entered. The distribution of the unofficial final marks is as follows:

The final exams and solutions have been posted in notebook and HTML formats under Content / Exams.

Please check your marks (see course information handout for instructions) and let me know if you have any questions.