Intro to
Programming
with Python

Fall 2010
course
navigation

nov 16

The questions page has been updated with info on docstrings, for loops, and assertions.

your work

Discuss homework
Discuss your final project ideas - and see more ideas below

various python uses

image processing : http://www.gimp.org/docs/python/ within GUI app http://wiki.python.org/moin/ImageMagick command line 3D modeling and animation : http://www.blender.org/development/ (e.g. 2.49 Python API Reference) numerical scientific work : numpy.scipy.org games : http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonGameLibraries audio : http://wiki.python.org/moin/Audio robots : 1. pyrorobotics.org : a python robot API, including simulators 2. www.roboteducation.org : another python robot API python systm is "myro" typical robot is "scribbler", about $200 http://www.georgiarobotics.com/roboteducation but apparently no simulator internet : network events : twistedmatrix.com web frameworks : django pylons, google app engine, etc (but you also need HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc)

data structures

We've talked about lists (and the similar tuples) and dictionaries. These really become powerful when you start embedding them :
Look at some examples :
Specific example: the ATM machine
objects might be something like GUI - all interaction with user Data - file input/output Person - name, password Account - each pot of money, e.g. checking, savings Transaction - deposit or withdrawal or transfer with time
The Data object could put the information could be stored in a single python data structure, stored as a string in a file with pprint read in as a string and then eval() to put it into a variable, which could then be converted to, say, a list of Persons, each with a list of history Transactions and several Accounts.
The storage file might look like this :
[{'name': 'John Smith', 'password':'...', 'accounts': [ {'name':'checking', 'balance': 120.23 # or store as pennies}, {'name':'savings', 'balance':4000.00 ], 'transactions': [ {'date':..., 'amount':..., 'from':..., 'to':...}, {...}, ] }, { # similar for another person } ]
The the top level of the program might be something like storage = Data('stored_data.txt') people = storage.readPeople() gui = GUI(people) while True: person = gui.login() # ask for name/pass; return user if match while person.transaction(): storage.save() # update disk file
where several of these objects contain the others, and would call methods on some of the others to get the work done.
I'm imagining that Data contains a list of people, and so can use that to get a string to send to the file.
Likewise, each person contains the gui, so person.transaction() would
  1. use gui to ask about what to do,
  2. create a Transaction object and append it
  3. update the person's balances, and
  4. return False if user is done.

what's next

For this Thu and next Tue, before spring break, look at the last chapter in the text: algorithms and recursion.
After break, minimal assignments while you work on projects. In class, I'll go over some of the python uses mentioned above: robots, the internet, science, etc.
Are we having fun yet?
http://cs.marlboro.edu/ courses/ fall2010/python/ notes/ nov_16
last modified Tuesday November 16 2010 9:01 am EST