Course Structure

The course structure is based primarily but not exclusively around the Lessons from Py4e.  The video tutorials in that course are very well explained and easy to follow.

In addition to the book, we will use other tools and resources, and our syllabus goes beyond what is available in the py4e course.

• Getting started builds on Lesson 1 dealing with installing Python, and also introduces some code learning tools for drag and drop coding (blockly, scratch and app inventor).  This section also includes details on setting up VS Code on your computer, and an online IDE on repl.

• Machine builds on Lesson 2 where some hardware and models of a computer system are presented. This is expanded to show additional ways to view computer systems and software.  Additional information on elements of the hardware system are presented, as well as the history of the computer and of software languages. There are practical exercises given to give experience with using assembly, compiling code and using an interpreter.

• Basics builds on Lesson 3 but also introduces a tool for planning software programs (flowcharts) and introduces early the concepts of debug, or ways to find the source of errors in our code.  There is additional information about variables, operators and builtins.

• Modularisation builds on Lesson 5 (functions)and demonstrates that modularisation is a part or programming that we have been using without being aware.  It looks at the benefits of modularisation, what are namespaces, how it helps with testing and the importance (and limits) of testing code .

• Conditionals makes a sandwich of lessons 4 and 6 and introduces some more conditional statements that are not included in Py4e.

• Collections are what I call thing that are made from a more than one object.  Examples are those objects covered in lessons 7, 9, 10 and 11.  All collections are iterable, and are either mutable or immutable.

• Classes are objects we create in Python using some of the builtin types such as ints, strings and so on- we create our own new objects with methods.  These are introducted in Lesson 15.