Recommendations for intro to python+programming lecture to Humanities MA students

Wed Nov 20 17:02:20 EST 2019

Besides the mistakes in the pdf (random.shuffle) the idea is to get the
right environment then py basics then numpy+pandas then viz seaborn or
minimal matplotlib

Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer
http://www.pythonmembers.club | https://github.com/Abdur-rahmaanJ
Mauritius

On Thu, 21 Nov 2019, 00:49 Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer, <arj.python at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have a draft of a concise py book for data people which i am preparing,
> might be useful to you.
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IKLBuJJWQKvcTWu-REsgm-JUGSvytBUu/view?usp=drivesdk
>
> Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer
> http://www.pythonmembers.club | https://github.com/Abdur-rahmaanJ
> Mauritius
>
> On Wed, 20 Nov 2019, 20:54 Göktuğ Kayaalp, <self at gkayaalp.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am responsible of giving my colleagues in from linguistics MA
>> programme an intro to Python, and programming, with a focus on
>> statistics.  It’ll be a single lecture, and I probably won’t be able to
>> do more than give some demos and then some pointers to actually properly
>> learn how to use the tools.
>>
>> The problem is I’m a rather techie power user and my audience the exact
>> opposite, so I feel like I could make use of some guidance as to how to
>> bridge the gap and be useful.
>>
>> I want to stick to Python 3, demo them a few basics of programming, then
>> how to use matplotlib, Jupyter notebooks (is this what IPyNBs became?),
>> and some descriptive statistics.  All this needs to happen within the
>> span of a single lecture (tho if people are interested I’ll offer to do
>> a few more in our own time), so 45min~1h.
>>
>> The first problem is installation: apart from me, a Debian user,
>> everybody has Windows or Mac laptops, and IDK how you install Python on
>> them.  I feel like choosing one of the distros is a good idea: I could
>> just put the installers on a USB and hand it out, or just send them a
>> message with simple steps to follow and set themselves up beforehand.
>> Thing is, IDK nothing about distros.  Anaconda seems to be the best
>> options, but comes with complications like an IDE, as opposed to just
>> working with notebooks, and is huge.  Also, seems to include R stuff.
>> Spyder looks nice, but I don’t want to freak people out with such an
>> unfamiliar environment as an IDE just within the first few moments they
>> encounter programming.  These are all humanities people.  Another
>> problem is that Anaconda has ‘conda’, a non-standard package manager,
>> and I’m kinda vary of introducing that to people: should I talk of pip,
>> should I leave it out?  I feel like I should just stick to pip and leave
>> conda out, but IDK.  Python(x,y) is interesting, but it’s apparently
>> Py2k only, and that’s a no-no.
>>
>> So, am I better off telling people to install Anaconda, or plain Py3k +
>> a selection of packages (which maybe I make into a .zip or something)?
>>
>> Then, I need good pointers to hand out: links to good introductions to
>> Python, programming, and statistical use of Python.  Thing is, I’ve
>> always learned the hacker way, i.e. skip the docs, tinker with stuff.
>> Thus, IDK of any good resources out of experience, and I want to ask you
>> all for some recommendations.  I prefer free and tutorial-like stuff,
>> but I’ll teach them how to use the stdlib reference too.
>>
>> What are some good self-teaching material for those who are new to
>> programming and Python, and need to mainly do statistics with
>> experimental data?
>>
>> Finally, I’m looking for recommendations on what to show and how.  My
>> current master plan is
>>
>> - what’s the use of programming for a linguist
>> - an abstract idea of what programming is
>> - basic intro to Python syntax
>> - demo how to load and clean up some data
>> - demo matplotlib
>> - demo jupyter notebooks
>> - compare with alternatives: R, SPSS, other?
>> - briefly refer to libraries for
>>   - NLP
>>   - AI?
>> - lots of links on
>>   - how to learn enough coding for number crunching and plotmaking
>>   - how to make use of stdlib reference
>>   - how to find and utilise packages and their docs
>>   - ...?
>>
>> I plan to produce a handout with all this info neatly organised, and
>> just go with a (few) Jupyter notebooks for the rest (resisting hard the
>> urge to go in with Emacs Org Mode instead :)).
>>
>> I’m looking forward to any recommendations from youse.  The deadline is
>> about a month and a half away, and I really want to give people
>> something operationable.  People are stuck with BS like SPSS, too simple
>> and too pricy, when a few lines of Python (or R) is all they need.  I
>> came here because IDK teaching about this stuff, and I haven’t left the
>> comfort zones of a programmer ever before, so this is some new
>> experience for me and I don’t want to botch it.
>>
>> Thanks a lot in advance,
>>
>>        Göktuğ.
>>
>> --
>> İ. Göktuğ Kayaalp       <https://www.gkayaalp.com/>
>>                          024C 30DD 597D 142B 49AC
>>                          40EB 465C D949 B101 2427
>> --
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>>
>