About This Course
Get an overview of the course and its learning outcomes.
We'll cover the following
Course objectives
The primary objective of this course is to introduce learners to the Python programming environment. We assume you’re familiar with MATLAB and want to transition from MATLAB to Python. In this course, we will introduce the basic programming concepts in Python and relate them to the concepts in MATLAB. One key goal is to help you get started in learning about the fields of data science and machine learning using Python and its packages.
If you already have hands-on development experience in MATLAB, you’ll find it easy to see the similarities and differences between the two programming environments. By developing code in Python, you’ll get an interactive learning experience.
In this course, we emphasize the importance of the Pythonic style of programming, which makes Python a first choice for developers. The guiding principles of coding in Python develop good programming practices for the learners.
The course covers only the basics and key features of Python programming. However, it builds sufficient ground for you if you’re making a shift from MATLAB to Python to prepare for advanced courses in Python. One of the attractive features of MATLAB is its strong data visualization tools. We included lessons on plotting in Python; despite it not being generally included in fundamental courses on Python programming. However, it should be helpful in making connections between Python and MATLAB.
At the end of the course, you’ll be able to:
Develop fundamental programming in Python.
Appreciate the simplicity, flexibility, and versatility of Pythonic programming.
Relate the similarities and differences between MATLAB and Python.
Learn to work with the basic libraries of Python, such as NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib, etc.
Analyze and visualize data.
Embark on the journey of data science and machine learning using Python.
Who should take this course?
This course is designed for individuals who are comfortable with MATLAB and want to transition to Python. Besides its strong programming features, Python offers a number of packages for different applications. For this course, we steer our learning orientation towards data science and machine learning. However, learners from other domains will find it equally useful to learn the Python language.
After taking this course, you’ll be able to take any advanced course in Python, whether it’s on advanced concepts in programming or using application-specific packages.
Course structure
The course is structured in the following order.
We introduce the significant features of the Python programming language, known as the Zen of Python.
We compare MATLAB and Python. It is important to appreciate why a transition from MATLAB to Python is necessary.
We recap some key features of MATLAB and its environment.
We introduce the Python environment and its key features and popular libraries.
We embark on the development journey of Python by introducing the data types, variables, and fundamental operations.
We introduce some key data structures in Python, namely lists, dictionaries, tuples, and sets.
We learn the basic control flow in the program using loops and conditional statements.
We learn the functions in Python.
We learn the file read and write operations.
One of the most attractive features of MATLAB remains its strong data visualization tools. We introduce how we can make these plots in Python using the Matplotlib and Seaborn libraries.
We introduce the pandas library, which helps in data understanding and analysis.
At the end, there are three practice challenges that help in assessing the concepts learned in the course.
Before concluding the course, we recap Pythonic programming principles, the Zen of Python, with simple coding examples.