Kickstart Python (Plotting and Programming in Python)
HIDA
Online
June 30 - July 1, 2025
9:00 am - 1:00 pm CET
Instructors:
Elena Eftimova
General Information
The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and
Library Carpentry communities of Instructors, Trainers, Maintainers,
helpers, and supporters who share a mission to teach foundational computational and data science
skills to researchers.
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Software Carpentry
aims to help researchers get their work done
in less time and with less pain
by teaching them basic research computing skills.
This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools,
including program design, version control, data management,
and task automation.
Participants will be encouraged to help one another
and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
Who:
The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers.
You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools
that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: This training will take place online.
The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.
Requirements:
Participants must have access to a computer with a
Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on.
They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).
Glosario is a multilingual glossary
for computing and data science terms. The glossary helps
learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it
in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers
for their learners.
Roles:
To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what),
refer to our Workshop FAQ.
Code of Conduct
Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.
Collaborative Notes
We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.
Schedule
Day 1
Before
See "Setup" below
9:00
Welcome, editor and Python basics
10:00
Data types and built-in functions
11:00
Break
11:15
Tabular data and Pandas
12:15
Plotting
13:00
End
Day 2
9:00
Lists, loops, and conditionals
10:00
Python functions
11:00
Break
11:15
Variable scope and programming style
12:00
Wrap up and feedback
12:30
Time buffer or Outlook
13:00
End
Setup
To participate in a
Software Carpentry
workshop,
you will need access to software as described below.
In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the
official website
to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.
Set up your workspace
Like other Carpentries workshops,
you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors.
To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool
you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..)
and the window for the Zoom video conference client open.
In order to see both at once,
we recommend using one of the following set up options:
Two monitors: If you have two monitors,
plan to have the tool you are learning up on one monitor and
the video conferencing software on the other.
Two devices: If you don't have two monitors,
do you have another device (tablet, smartphone) with a medium to large
sized screen? If so, try using the smaller device as your video
conference connection and your larger device (laptop or desktop)
to follow along with the tool you will be learning about.
Divide your screen: If you only have one device
and one screen, practice having two windows
(the video conference program and one of the tools you will be using
at the workshop) open together.
How can you best fit both on your screen?
Will it work better for you to toggle between them
using a keyboard shortcut?
Try it out in advance to decide what will work best for you.
This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.
Python is a popular language for
research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as
well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be
a bit difficult, so we recommend
Conda-forge,
an all-in-one installer.
Regardless of how you choose to install it,
please make sure you install a Python version >= 3.9
(e.g. 3.11 is fine, 3.6 is not).
We will teach Python using the Jupyter Notebook,
a programming environment that runs in a web browser (Jupyter Notebook will be installed by Miniforge). For this to work you will need a reasonably
up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and
Firefox browsers are all
supported
(some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9
and below, are not).
Double click on the downloaded file (Something like, Minforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe)
If you get a "Windows protected your PC" pop-up from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, click on "More info" and select "Run anyway"
Follow through the installer using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Add Miniforge3 to my PATH environment variable.
Download the environment file (e.g. by copying the contents into a text editor) and saving as carpentries_environment.yml to your Downloads folder.
(The following steps requires using the shell. If you aren't
comfortable doing the installation yourself
stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Search for the application "Miniforge Prompt", open it and navigate to your Downloads directory (if not already there) by cd Downloads. Enter, and then run conda env create -f .\Downloads\carpentries_environment.yml
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for macOS
(The following steps requires using the shell. If you aren't
comfortable doing the installation yourself
stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where
the executable is downloaded (e.g., cd ~/Downloads).
Type
bash Miniforge3-
and then press
Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of
file you just downloaded should appear.
Press Enter
(or Return depending on your keyboard).
You will follow the text-only prompts.
To move through the text, press Spacebar.
Type yes and press enter to approve the license.
Press Enter (or Return)
to approve the default location
for the files.
Type yes and press
Enter (or Return)
to prepend Miniforge to your PATH
(this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
Download the environment file (e.g. by copying the contents into a text editor) and saving as carpentries_environment.yml to your Downloads folder.
On the terminal, navigate to your Downloads directory if not already there by running cd ~/Downloads, enter and then run: conda env create -f ~/Downloads/carpentries_environment.yml
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for Linux
(The following steps requires using the shell. If you aren't
comfortable doing the installation yourself
stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where
the executable is downloaded (e.g., `cd ~/Downloads`).
Type
bash Miniforge3-
and then press
Tab to autocomplete the full file name. The name of
file you just downloaded should appear.
Press Enter
(or Return depending on your keyboard).
You will follow the text-only prompts.
To move through the text, press Spacebar.
Type yes and press enter to approve the license.
Press Enter (or Return)
to approve the default location
for the files.
Type yes and press
Enter (or Return)
to prepend Miniforge to your PATH
(this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
Download the environment file (e.g. by copying the contents into a text editor) and saving as carpentries_environment.yml to your Downloads folder.
Search for the application "Miniforge Prompt", open it and navigate to your Downloads directory (if not already there) by running cd ~/Downloads . After entering, run next: conda env create -f ~/Downloads/carpentries_environment.yml
Close the terminal window.
Browser-based setup
If you are not able to do the local setup, an alternative is to use Google Colab. This is a free service by Google for browser-based Python programming. You will need: a compatible web browser (Chrome, Firefox or Safari; Chrome is recommended), and a personal Google account. If you don't have one, create one here: https://accounts.google.com/signup. Then try to access Google Colab. If that works, you are done.