Python is becoming the de facto superglue language for modern scientific computing. In this course we will learn Pythonic interactions with databases, imaging processing, advanced statistical and numerical packages, web frameworks, machine-learning, and parallelism. Each week will involve lectures and coding projects. In the final project, students will build a working codebase useful for their own research domain.
This class is for any student working in a quantative discpline and with familiarily with Python. Those who completed the Python Bootcamp or equivalent will be eligible.
| Date | Content | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 29 | Advanced Python Language Concepts (geared towards Boot Camp graduates) | Josh |
| Sep 5 | scipy, numpy | Fernando |
| Sep 12 | Advanced versioning, application building (optparse), debugging & testing | Josh |
| Sep 19 | Advanced plotting, Notebooks and data vizualization, mayavi | Fernando |
| Sep 26 | Machine Learning | Josh |
| Oct 3 | Interacting with the world (xml-rpc, urllib, sending and receiving email, serial) | Josh |
| Oct 10 | Database interaction, large datasets (HDF5) | Josh |
| Oct 17 | Pandas and Timeseries Modelling | Wes McKinney |
| Oct 24 | GUI (Tkinter, GTK, Traits) | Josh |
| Oct 31 | Parallelism | Paul/Fernando |
| Nov 7 | Web frameworks & RESTful APIs, Flask | Josh |
| Nov 14 | Bayesian programming & Symbolic math | Joey Richards |
| Nov 21 | Cython; wrapper around legacy code -- FORTRAN, C, etc | Paul |
| Nov 28 | holiday | |
| Dec 5/Onward | final project work | |
| Onward |
Each Thursday we will be introducing a resonably self-contained topic with two back-to-back lectures. In between a short (~20 minute) breakout coding session will be conducted. Homeworks will require you to write a large (several hundred line) codebase.
There will be a regular help session every Monday morning before homeworks are due, 10am-12 in Evans 481. Email Josh with any questions if you cannot attend.
Email us at ucbpythonclass@gmail.com or contact the professor directly (jbloom@astro.berkeley.edu). You can also contact the GSI, Adam, at (amorgan@astro.berkeley.edu. Auditing is not permitted by the University but those wishing to sit in on a class or two should contact the professor before attending.
