Python Basics: Problem Solving with Code

Overview

Class Central Tips

A lot of code is building up from the most basic primitive elements of the language to increasingly faithful and meaningful things. In this course you will see how to author more complex ideas and capabilities in Python. In technical terms, you will learn dictionaries and how to work with them and nest them, functions, refactoring, and debugging, all of which are also thinking tools for the art of problem solving. We'll use this knowledge to explore our browsing history, interrogate a tweet, and draw pictures.

Syllabus

Examining Your Own Web Browsing Habits in Python

Can you use code to learn about...yourself? We're starting this course with a module in which you explore web browsing habits. If you installed the plugins for tracking your web history, you'll be able to explore your own. As this code gets more involved, you'll also get more advice on managing code complexity and reading manuals. Let's get started!

Representing Complex Ideas in Python

Understanding how Python understands the world brings us to "dictionaries", which are kind of like lists, but they allow more variety and structure. This module will build up to representing increasingly complex real world things. We will build up to looking under the hood of a single tweet, and understanding the "social" in "social media".

Making Pictures with Robots

Everything you've learned in this course about Python is just basic building blocks that programmers use to build bigger building blocks of their own. In this module, we'll do precisely that, turning Python into a little language for drawing pictures, a DIY MS Paint.

A Strategy for Hunting Bugs

A major part of programming that no one ever tells you about is "debugging": spending seconds, minutes, hours, or even days going through code that should work to understand why it doesn't. This demoralizing subject stops a lot of beginners, but there is a way to be good at it, and that is a major part of learning to think the way code thinks.