Lecture notes for my Python talk at Women Tech-Makers Group @ IIT Kanpur

Reading Order/File Descriptions

So, this should help you understand what all these files are about so you can decide how to get around it.

• notes1.py, notes2.py : These files will explain the basic syntax of Python for newbies.
• evolutionText.py : This program uses a string, modified randomly to acheive a target text. It demonstrates strings and the random module.
• hangman.py : This program creates the Hangman game. Demonstrates strings, lists, functions, and conditions.
• next_word_v0.py, next_word_v1.py : This program processes a raw text corpus to store the words that come immediately after a target word, and return the most frequent next word. The v0 version uses no external libraries and demonstrates dictionaries, loops, and, to some extent exceptions. The v1 version uses built-in libraries to increase efficiency and readability, and demonstrates how to store variables in Python to files.
• pi.py : Calculates the value of PI up to different degrees of accuracy using a recurrence relation. Demonstrates the math module, functions, and loops.
• plot.py : A simple example program for the matplotlib and pyplot libraries.
• reddit.py : This program accesses the http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned page and displays a randomly-selected submission. Demonstrates web-scraping using the requests module, JSON parsing, and random.
• sql.py : Demonstrates how the sqlite3 module can allow us to create an SQL table in our database and execute queries on it.
• tk.py : Demonstrates how to use the Tkinter module to make Graphical interfaces in Python.
• wiki.py : This program gets a random Wikipedia page using Special:Random, and uses the BeautifulSoup module to access the title of the page. It then allows the user to open this page using his/her default web browser. Demonstrates web-scraping using the requests module, the BeautifulSoup module, and the webbrowser module.

Clarifications:

text8 dataset is a subset of the dataset available here: http://mattmahoney.net/dc/textdata

evolutionText.py is taken from http://usingpython.com

hangman.py is taken from http://inventwithpython.com/chapter9.html

pi.py is taken from http://www.craig-wood.com/nick/articles/pi-archimedes/

notes1.py and notes2.py are inspired from http://www.learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python Much of the text has been altered, however.

All other codes are written by Shashwat Chandra.

Resources:

For someone interested in learning Python, I have found the following resources to be the most helpful:

• https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/
• https://docs.python.org/2/index.html
• http://newcoder.io
• http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/python
• http://www.diveintopython.net/

For any specific modules (ex. requests or BeautifulSoup, look at the relevant documentation)