An incomplete introduction to Python

In order to use \(\omega radlib\), you need to be able to use Python. The notebooks in this section will give you a glimpse of the Python language and important scientific packages, confront you with some Python exercises, and refer you to further online material. In addition, we will address some issues that are relevant to \(\omega radlib\), but do not necessarily address \(\omega radlib\) functionality.

As an introduction to scientific python, this section is necessarily incomplete. There are better and more comprehensive courses such as the SciPy Lecture Notes or the Dive into Python book.

Mostly, we will assume that you have some basic knowledge about programming, e.g. from other interpreted langauages such as R or Matlab. Otherwise, a fundamental course such as Dive into Python might help you more.

List of Python related articles in this section

• A quick start to Python
  • Hello interpreted world
  • Writing a program in Python
  • Important data types
  • Other data types: collections
  • Excursus: indexing in Python
  • Dictionaries
  • Control flow
  • Importing functions from modules
  • Getting help
  • Writing your own functions
  • File input and output
  • The building blocks of scientific Python
• Numpy: manipulating numerical data
  • Creating and inspecting NumPy arrays
  • Indexing and slicing
• Visualising data with Matplotlib
  • Different ways to import matplotlib
  • Simple plots and decorations
  • More complex plots and fine control
• Dealing with time series
  • The datetime module
• Using virtual environments
  • Why should I use virtual environments
  • Why should I NOT use virtual environments
• Integrated Development Environments for Python
  • Development Environments vs. Notebooks
  • Some suitable IDEs