Learn to Program: The Fundamentals @ FIX University Campus

Learn to Program: The Fundamentals

Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries

Behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap, there is a computer program that makes things happen. This course introduces the fundamental building blocks of programming and teaches you how to write fun and useful programs using the Python language.

Video Lectures

Week 1

(expanded, click to collapse)

• Welcome to LTP (0:35)
   

  Subtitles (text) for Welcome to LTP (0:35)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Welcome to LTP (0:35)

  Video (MP4) for Welcome to LTP (0:35)
• Getting Started: Installing Python (2:46)
   

  Lecture Summary for Getting Started: Installing Python (2:46)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Getting Started: Installing Python (2:46)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Getting Started: Installing Python (2:46)

  Video (MP4) for Getting Started: Installing Python (2:46)
• Python as a Calculator (10:35)
   

  Lecture Summary for Python as a Calculator (10:35)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Python as a Calculator (10:35)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Python as a Calculator (10:35)

  Video (MP4) for Python as a Calculator (10:35)
• Python and Computer Memory (2:38)
   

  Lecture Summary for Python and Computer Memory (2:38)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Python and Computer Memory (2:38)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Python and Computer Memory (2:38)

  Video (MP4) for Python and Computer Memory (2:38)
• Variables (7:32)
   

  Lecture Summary for Variables (7:32)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Variables (7:32)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Variables (7:32)

  Video (MP4) for Variables (7:32)
• Built-in Functions (4:57)
   

  Lecture Summary for Built-in Functions (4:57)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Built-in Functions (4:57)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Built-in Functions (4:57)

  Video (MP4) for Built-in Functions (4:57)
• Defining Functions (6:46)
   

  Lecture Summary for Defining Functions (6:46)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Defining Functions (6:46)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Defining Functions (6:46)

  Video (MP4) for Defining Functions (6:46)

Week 2

(expanded, click to collapse)

• Visualizing Assignment Statements (3:25)
   

  Subtitles (text) for Visualizing Assignment Statements (3:25)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Visualizing Assignment Statements (3:25)

  Video (MP4) for Visualizing Assignment Statements (3:25)
• Type str (4:50)
   

  Lecture Summary for Type str (4:50)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Type str (4:50)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Type str (4:50)

  Video (MP4) for Type str (4:50)
• Input/Output and str Formatting (10:16)
   

  Lecture Summary for Input/Output and str Formatting (10:16)

  Video (MP4) for Input/Output and str Formatting (10:16)
• Docstrings and Function help (1:18)
   

  Subtitles (text) for Docstrings and Function help (1:18)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Docstrings and Function help (1:18)

  Video (MP4) for Docstrings and Function help (1:18)
• Function Design Recipe (5:49)
   

  Lecture Summary (html) for Function Design Recipe (5:49)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Function Design Recipe (5:49)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Function Design Recipe (5:49)

  Video (MP4) for Function Design Recipe (5:49)
• Function Reuse (6:34)
   

  Lecture Summary (html) for Function Reuse (6:34)

   

  Subtitles (text) for Function Reuse (6:34)

   

  Subtitles (srt) for Function Reuse (6:34)

  Video (MP4) for Function Reuse (6:34)
• Visualizing Function Calls (5:59)

Resources

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Python

This course uses Python 3. The main Python website contains links to downloads and documentation. Here are some useful links inside that website:

• Python 3.2.3 download page (scroll down to the "Download" section)
• Python 3 library reference, which contains descriptions of Python features. (It contains much more information than we will be able to cover in this course.)
• A brief list of features of IDLE, the software we use to write Python programs. IDLE comes with Python.

The Python Visualizer

We provide software that helps you visualize program execution. We introduce this in our week 2 video lectures.

• The Python Visualizer. This is based on work by Philip Guo, customized to better meet our needs.

Additional References

This course is intended to be self-contained. However, should you want more reading material with additional examples and exercises, you may find our textbook useful. This is not required at all! Further, this book uses Python 2, not Python 3, and so some of the language features will not match what you see in the video lectures and other course work. Still, there are a ton of exercises that will directly translate to the course material. Should you choose to use it, there is a description of changes between Python 2 and Python 3. You can choose to purchase an electronic version (PDF, ePub, mobi) instead of a paper book.

• Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python

Announcements

A1 fixes

We have addressed some typos and a couple of errors in the A1 handout. The biggest change is that the type contract for function to_24_hour_clock is now (number) -> number; before it was (int) -> int. We have added an example of what it should do with a float value.

We have also removed the list of countries in time zone UTC+00:00; it had 2 incorrect entries due to us misreading the Wikipedia page. Apologies to those of you from Spain and Denmark for trying to change your time zone!

Keep the feedback coming, this is really useful for making this a quality assignment. Thanks!

Sun 30 Sep 2012 7:51:00 PM PDT

Better float comparisons on A1

Because of the rounding problems with floats, it is possible for two different equations that are mathematically equal to be considered different in Python. For example, try these two expressions in the Python shell:

    1.0 / 3.0

    0.1 / 0.3

Because of this and other reasons, we have just added a tolerance on Assignment 1 so that if your answer differs from the expected one by only a little bit (about 7 decimal places), it will now be considered correct. If you have recently received an error on a solution that you are pretty sure is correct, please try submitting again.

Apologies for the frustration!

Sun 30 Sep 2012 7:07:00 PM PDT

Audio improved for "Input/Output and str formatting" video

We replaced the audio for this video and we've let the Coursera staff know that it needs to be captioned. In the meantime, we hope that the new audio is helpful.

Sun 30 Sep 2012 5:32:00 PM PDT

Assignment 1 is posted!

Hi all,

We have just posted Assignment 1. As you'll see when you read the handout, you should finish the week 2 lectures and exercise before starting work on this.

Enjoy!

-Jen and Paul

Sun 30 Sep 2012 12:25:00 PM PDT

Week 2 lectures and exercise posted, assignment 1 coming in a few hours

Hi all,

We have posted the week 2 lectures and the week 2 exercise. We're finishing up the assignment handout and it should be posted in a few hours.

Enjoy!

-Jen and Paul

P.S. As a reminder, exercise 1 is due in about 11 hours.

Sun 30 Sep 2012 8:58:00 AM PDT

New video for assignment statement visualization

There is some confusion about what the assignment statement does. This is to be expected — we see it every year in our intro course here at the UofT. We have released a week 2 video on this early; hopefully it will help clarify the issue.

This uses the Python Visualizer, which you can find by clicking Resources in the navigation bar.

Fri 28 Sep 2012 10:39:00 AM PDT