Python for Astronomers

Python for Astronomers

Course Materials

Presentation of classes as pdf:

• Lecture 1 Introduction; Numbers, Variables, math, while (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 2 Strings; Indexes and slices (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 3 a Lists, for loops, file I/O (R.Schaaf)
  
• Lecture 3 b Numpy (M.Metz)
• Lecture 4 Script files, if statement, truth, equality and identity, tuples, dictionaries (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 5 More on numpy (M.Metz)
• Lecture 6 Matplotlib (M.Metz)
• Lecture 7 Functions and modules (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 8 a Errors and exceptions (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 8 b More on numpy & matplotlib (M.Metz)
• Lecture 9 Classes and instances; the Python Standard Library (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 10 a Inheritance, operator overloading (R.Schaaf)
• Lecture 10 b Scipy; Python 3 (M.Metz)

Other:

• Source code and data for the Demos in the first lecture
• Data files for lecture 3
• Data files for lecture 4
• Data files for lecture 5
• Data files for lecture 6
• Data files for lecture 7
• Data files for lecture 8
• Data files for lecture 9
• Data files for lecture 10

Usefull links

Unix tutorials:

• The UNIX Tutorial for Beginners from the University of Surrey
• The Basic UNIX Tutorial from Idaho State University
• A list of Basic UNIX commands compiled by S.Z.Riehemann (Stanford)

Tutorials for vi and emacs:

• The Vi Lovers Home Page by T.M.Gil (MIT)
  
• An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi by W.Joy and M.Horton (Berkeley)
• Xah's Emacs Tutorial by Xah Lee
• Gnu's Guided Tour of Emacs
• Printable key bindings reference card for emacs

Shell tutorials:

• Wikipedia's articles on Unix shell, Bourne shell, and C shell
• Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial by V.G.Gite
• Bourne shell tutorial by B.Barnett (General Electric)
• The C Shell tutorial from the University of Hawaii at Manoa

Official Python websites:

• The official Python website: www.python.org
• The official SciPy website: www.scipy.org
• The official NumPy website: numpy.scipy.org
• The official matplotlib website: matplotlib.sourceforge.net

Python documentation and tutorials:

• Documentation for the current Python version (2.6): docs.python.org
• Documentation for the Python version used in the course (2.5.0): /www.python.org/doc/2.5
• The official Python tutorial for version 2.5.0
• Documentation and tutorials for SciPy and Numpy at the SciPy website: www.scipy.org/Documentation
• Matplotlib's documentation: matplotlib.sourceforge.net/contents.html
• The Numpy example list including ducumentation at scipy.org 
• The (now) free e-book Guide to NumPy by Travis Oliphant, the lead developer of NumPy

Some books we like:

	Learning Python by M.Lutz, O'Reilly A good introduction into Python for "both absolute beginners, and crusty programming veterans". We think this statement from the book is true! Now in the 3rd edition. The book is also freely available online at Safari Books online
	Python Cookbook by A.Martelli, A.M.Ravebscroft, and D.Ascher, O'Reilly Great collection of recipes for Python programmers, contributed by Python community members. Very helpful to get the job done! This book is also freely available online at Safari Books online
	Programming Python by M.Lutz, O'Reilly On 1600 pages, "this book teaches application-level programming with Python. That is, it is about what you can do with the language once you've mastered its fundamentals." Also freely available online at Safari Books online
	Python in a nutshell by A.Martelli, O'Reilly "A quick reference to Python itself, the most commonly used parts of its vast standard library, and some of the most popular and useful third-party modules and packages, covering a wide range of application areas, including web and network programming, GUIs, XML handling, database interactions, and high-speed numeric computing." Also freely available online at Safari Books online

Miscellaneous links:

• What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetics by D.Goldberg; from 1991. Extensive description of internal representation, rounding errors, the IEEE 754 standard including NaN, inf etc. Also avaiable as pdf here.