Python
is one of the hottest programming languages of the moment. We want to
give it a try and we have an amazing tool (Jupyter notebooks) and a great
online service (Kaggle) to help us doing so.
If
you have never heard about Python, as it would be the case for most of
our students, it is a more classical programming language in the mold of
C and the likes, not as particular as LabVIEW and MATLAB, the two other
languages we cover in this blog. Of course, it is quite different to C
too, but it looks like this:
# Python program to find the factorial of a number provided by the user.# (adapted from https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/examples/factorial)
# To take input from the user
num = int(input("Enter a number: "))
factorial = 1
if num < 0: print("Sorry, factorial does not exist for negative numbers")
elif num == 0: print("The factorial of 0 is 1")
else: for i in range(1, num + 1):
factorial = factorial*i print("The factorial of", num, "is", factorial)
You
do not have to catch every detail for now. One of the odd features is
that Python uses indentation as a programming element. Take a look at
the last lines of the program, for example.
Again,
where do we start? There are tons of resources for learning Python on
your own, but we recommend you start with Kaggle's course. Kaggle is a Cloud service for Python programmers and data scientists. It is based on Jupyter notebooks,
a great tool, similar to MATLAB Live Scripts, where we can mix text and
interactive code. You can install Jupyter on your own laptop, but
Kaggle lets you use their notebook platform for free. It also makes easy
to share your notebooks and datasets, and you can use others' work too.
So, our recommendation is to start learning Python at Kaggle:
When
you finish the course, you could send the certificate to the teacher
(if it is your case). After that, there is an example that explains how
to access AWS S3 (the Simple Storage Service) using the boto3
library. If you already have an AWS account, you could try to fork the
notebook and edit it on your own. The link is the following:
After that, you could fork and try to solve the exercises proposed in the following notebook:
And finally, you could make your own notebooks easily. Do not hesitate to send your ideas to the teacher. And of course, if you are not a student, you could contact us for anything you want.