My Journey to the World of Python Programming: From a Python Newbie to You
I could remember writing my first “Hello World!” sometime in May, 2020☺. It was a very exciting moment of my life, as it was my very first time understanding how codes work. The study resource used then was “python tutorials for absolute beginners”. The course flow begun with variables in python, and then, gradual progress was made to data types, functions, the conditional statements (if, else & elif), loops (for & while), lists, index slicing, tuples, sets, dictionaries, datetime module, web scrapping, and zip functions. Much more focus was made then on the theoretical aspect than creating projects (a crucial mistake I made).
BASIC CONCEPTS OF PROGRAMMING
Programming just entails taking a task and writing it down in a programming language that the computer can understand and execute. The computer only understands 0s and 1s (binary). Source code (human-readable code) is fed into the computer via a software/IDE, which is then interpreted into the computer as 0s and 1s.
Computer programming involves formulating problems, breaking them down down into meaningful steps, and communicating these steps to the computer in an organized way. You do not have to come from a Tech background before you understand the concepts of programming. The only must-haves are problem-solving skills and abstract thinking, technical reasoning (understanding the syntax of a programming language) and having a good style of coding (easy-to-understand and well-arranged code lines; your codes must have a logical flow!!!).
A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF PYTHON
Why Use Python in Data Science?
- Open-source — free and has a large usage community
- General-purpose programming language
- High-level programming language
Python’s IDE
There are a couple of IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) available for Python [PyCharm, VS Code, Spyder, Jupyter Notebook, and several others] . An IDE is simply a software that enables programmers to write, edit and debug codes. I make use of Jupyter Notebook. Jupyter is a server-client application that allows code editing via a web browser. The codes stored in the notebook document using the file extension .ipynb (IPython NoteBook file), which could be stored locally or remotely. Anaconda is a software package that contains Python and Jupyter Notebook. You could install via this link https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/
A few basic concepts/terms I had to know in Python programming as a newbie Data Scientist…
- Variables and data types: 4 types of variables — integers, floats, boolean, strings.
- Conditional statement: The if statement, else statement and elif (‘else if’) statement
- Loops: For loop and While loop
- Functions in Python
- Lists, tuples and dictionaries
- Iterations
- Object-oriented programming
- Modules and packages
All these are just the basics I’ve come to understand. With time and consistency, I am advancing in Python programming and learning to apply all I’ve got into building data science projects. Learning never ends! This is just the beginning…
SUMMARY
The entirety of programming shouldn’t lie in just “reading codes” and forfeiting project building. Inasmuch as I strongly advise that any newbie like me to understand the basics and concepts of python programming, I wouldn’t still recommend that much time be dwelt on just head knowledge and real-time projects be left out. Also, consistency should be the key whilst laying your hands on codes (an hour or two dedicated study time per day wouldn’t hurt at all).
