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Basic Programming in Python - Notes

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Basic Programming in Python - Notes

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8fxkpvgqkn
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Lecture 1: Introduction – Basic Programming in Python

Class Goals

1. Set up ability to understand more advanced cybersecurity topics


 There is a limit to the discussions we can have about cyber security without least
some knowledge of programming.
2. Set you up for greater success in industry/academia
3. Be able to have semi-technical discussions
4. Teach you something is actually useful to you now

Potential Uses

 Automation
 Data collection and processing
 Money
 Animation
 Gaming
 Machine Learning  Python is the language for this

Programming as a skill

1. Breaking down the problem (30% of the skill)

 Taking the larger problem, and figuring out the individual steps
 You should already have an idea of how to do this
 Example: writing an essay

 Start

2. Translating steps/tasks to instructions (60% of the skill)

 Taking the steps you found when breaking down the problem, and

3. Writing the syntax/keywords (10% of the skill)

 Language specific
 Fairly straightforward if you did the previous two steps

 It’s really important to learn to break down problems and translate them for
computers.

Biggest pitfalls
1. Treating code like an academic axercise

 Learning how to swim by reading a book

2. Only focusing on writing code,and not on the problem solving

 Actually writing syntax/keywords is very easy


 Breaking down the problem to figure out steps is much harder

3. Coding too late

 The longer you wait, the harder it is to catch up

4. Not coding in class

 You’ll gain little by writing notes

5. Coding in class by copying everything exactly

 <…>

Language

<…>

High-level

 Assembly language
 Hardware
 Machine Language
 High Level Language

Interpreted

 Compiled Language  run the code through compiler and make it executable which
takes more time but runs faster

 Interpreted Language  This is Python, start from the code and run it
straightforward, there is no compiler. It runs everything up until an error.

General-purpose

 Domain-specific Languages

 HTML
 SQL
 General-purpose Languages  This is Python

Object-oriented

 Has the concept of “Objects”


 We will cover this topic in great detail over two lectures

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

 Pycharm is an IDE

Keywords

- Specific words that have set meaning

 Most programming languages have them

Syntax

 Defines the structure of the language


 Where most general-purpose languages will differ
 Python has significant spacing

 Tabs mean something in Python, in most languages they don’t.

 Python also uses colons

 <…>

What did we learn from the activity?

 Specificity is important
 Little mistakes can make a big difference
 Abstraction is useful

 Allows you to focus on the bigger picture, not on the little things.

 Computers follow instructions

 If a computer isn’t doing what you want it to do – it’s because you told it to do
the wrong thing!

 Breaking down the problem is much harder than writing the actual instructions

Lecture 2:
Float

- Decimal values

- 5.0 for example is a float

Integer

 d

String

- “5.0” for example is a string

 Holds text

Boolean

 True/False Value
 Examples:

 True
 False

Lecture 3: Control Flow + Input and Parsing


Comments in Python

 Comments are code that doesn’t run

 # Your comment here

- Just to take notes

Input()

 Taking input from the user is easy


 VariableName = input()
 What will it return?  it will return what the user types in the console

 This is an argument. The function takes this as input

 Returns a string with whatever the user enters

 Either save it in a variable

 Or use it as an argument for another function

Conditions

Comparisons
 ==
 >
 <
 
 >==

Booleans

Lecture 4: Loops
d

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