Basic Python
- Programming is an important skill which is highly applicable to
bio-research and medicine.
- Python is one of the most popular programming language for being
general-purpose and high level language.
- Python uses an interpreter for line by line code translation.
- Python used
if, elif and else as conditional
statements.
- In Python, there is an indentation rule of 4 spaces.
- The hierarchy of conditional statement is always the same.
-
lists and tuples are 2 types of
arrays.
- An index is a unique reference to a specific value and Python uses a
zero-based indexing system.
-
lists are mutable because their contents can be
modified.
-
slice(), .pop(), .index(),
.remove() and .insert() are some of the key
functions used in mutable arrays.
-
tuples are immutable, which means that their contents
cannot be modified.
- Iterations and loops are used to perform repetitive operations.
- Implementation of
for-loops involves four steps.
- Conditional statements are used within loops to handle different
situations.
-
while-loops are most suitable when an exact number of
conditions/iterations is unknown.
- Dictionaries associate a set of values with a number of
keys.
-
Keys are used to access the values of a dictionary.
- Dictionaries are mutable.
- Nested dictionaries are constructed to organise data in a
hierarchical fashion.
- Some of the useful methods to work with dictionaries are:
.items(), .get()
- Functions can help to make repetitive tasks efficient, allowing the
passing of values into whole blocks of code, with a simple function
call.
- Keyword def is used to write a function.
- Optional arguments do not require prior definition.
- The potential interconnectivity of functions can make them very
powerful.
