Introduction to Python Programming

Instructors

Helpers

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to programming with the Python language. The course material is suitable for complete beginners, with no previous programming experience or knowledge required or assumed. Participants can work through the course at their own pace, so the materials are also suitable for those with some programming experience.

Python has grown in recent years to become one of the most widely-used programming languages in biology. This increasing popularity reflects how easy Python is to learn compared with other languages, and how adaptable it is to a wide variety of different tasks. Simultaneously, the rise of data-driven approaches to science means that programming skills are becoming more and more important for biologists.

The course will include several short taught sections but most of the time will be devoted to more informal, practical sessions allowing attendees to get to grips with the language at their own pace. This provides the perfect starting point for scientists who would like to begin programming, while also catering to more experienced programmers who just want to learn the fundamentals of a new language.

Participants will learn:

• the basic concepts and building blocks of programming in Python
• how to quickly automate repetitive tasks and calculations
• the best ways of handling different types of data
• working with the extensive catalogue of subject-specific modules available for Python
• how to read data from a file, process, and summarise it
• automating the visualisation of data using Python’s powerful plotting libraries

After attending the course, you will have a good understanding of the core themes of programming, and be able to write your own Python programs, to automate repetitive analysis tasks and produce visualisations of your data. The course organisers will be on hand to provide help and advice throughout the duration of the course.

Prerequisites: None

Suggestion: We will soon advertise a Git course that will happen some days before this event. Git is a useful tool to version (code) and work collaboratively. Please consider attending it too, if you are interested in the Python course.

Setup

Participants are required to have their own laptop to work with on the course, with the Anaconda Python Distribution installed. If you would like help installing Anaconda, please email Bio-IT in advance of the course. If you prefer not to install Anaconda, you could also run the course practicals on the EMBL Jupyter Hub

To join the online version of this online course, you will also need the Zoom client installed on your computer. You can get this at zoom download. You will receive connection details after you have registered using the form below.

We will provide the possibility to have this course on site in Heidelberg. The room will be booked only if we will have enough attendees planning to join in person, hence please be aware that your in person registration might be moved to an online one.

Programme

A more detailed programme will be added soon. Each day will include two sessions: the morning session from 10:00 to 12:00 and the afternoon session from 13:30 to 15:30.

Bookings