Teaching scientific programming using Python

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Contents

• Front Matter
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 The current course
  • 1.2 Python
    • 1.2.1 What is Python?
    • 1.2.2 Python's design philosophy
    • 1.2.3 Project rationale
• 2. The Python trial
  • 2.1 The course handbook
  • 2.2 The trial
  • 2.3 Software
    • 2.3.1 Python
    • 2.3.2 IDLEfork
    • 2.3.3 Numeric Python
    • 2.3.4 Gnuplot
  • 2.4 Questionnaire
• 3. Results
  • 3.1 Questionnaire results: All students
  • 3.2 Questionnaire results: Categorised by ability
• 4. Discussion
  • 4.1 Aims
  • 4.2 Methodology
  • 4.3 Is Python's use feasible?
    • 4.3.1 Portability
    • 4.3.2 Speed with which it can be taught
    • 4.3.3 Demonstrators
    • 4.3.4 Integrated Development Environment
    • 4.3.5 Teaching of generic programming concepts
  • 4.4 Is Python preferable?
    • 4.4.1 Readability and the speed with which Python can be learnt
    • 4.4.2 Python's use outside Education
    • 4.4.3 Python's peculiarities
  • 4.5 Trial experiences and questionnaire results
    • 4.5.1 Indentation a block-delimiter
    • 4.5.2 Error messages
    • 4.5.3 Syntax errors
    • 4.5.4 Arrays
    • 4.5.5 Reading and writing files
    • 4.5.6 The range function and fencepost errors
    • 4.5.7 The interactive interpreter
    • 4.5.8 Python compared to Pascal
  • 4.6 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• A. The questionnaire
• B. Fixing IDLEfork
• About this document ...

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Teaching scientific programming using Python

Previous: Front Matter Up: Teaching scientific programming using Next: List of Abbreviations

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Documentation released on December 3, 2002.