Introductory Python

Learn about the Data Science and level up your Python Skills. Practice with 30+ coding exercises and quizzes

As an introduction to programming for the Digital Humanities (DH), this book presents six key assignments oriented on DH topics. The topics include Computing Change Over Time (calculating burials at a historic cemetery), Visualizing Change Over Time (visualizing the burials at the historic cemetery), Textual Analysis (finding word frequencies and “stop words” in public domain texts), XML Transformation (transforming a simplified version of XML into HTML styled with CSS), Stylometry (comparing the measured features of graphic images), and Social Network Analysis (analyzing extended relationships in historic circles).

While other textbooks devote their pages to explaining introductory programming concepts, The Python Workbook focuses exclusively on exercises, following the philosophy that computer programming is a skill best learned through experience and practice. Designed to support and encourage hands-on learning about programming, this student-friendly work contains 174 exercises, spanning a variety of academic disciplines and everyday situations. Solutions to selected exercises are also provided, supported by brief annotations that explain the technique used to solve the problem, or highlight specific points of Python syntax. No background knowledge is required to solve the exercises, beyond the material covered in a typical introductory Python programming course.