Introduction to Python Fundamentals – Lesson 1

It is Thursday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Even though we are still officially in summer, the highs and lows for the days are going down. Hopefully we will have at least two more months of decent weather to walk outside.

As I mentioned in the last posts, we are going to start solving problems in Python. According to the PYPL Index, for results collected in August 2021, the most popular programming language is Python with a share of 31.47%. Java is second with a 19.14% share.

According to the IEEE Spectrum article “Top Programming Languages 2021 Python dominates as the de facto platform for new technologies” Python is number 1. I guess it is time to start solving problems in Python. In our next post I will start solving easy problems. We will then progress to medium and hard.

As you might already know, I like to refresh on tools I will be using. I decided to start watching “Introduction to Python Fundamentals: Lesson 01” by Paul Deitel published by Pearson Education, Inc. Since I am a member of the ACM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_for_Computing_Machinery) I have access to O’Reilly titles. If you work developing software, I strongly recommend you joining the ACM. They provide a wealth of information at your fingertips. For example, earlier today I attended the webinar “Quantum Computational Supremacy” by Scott Aaronson. I do not work with quantum computers, but enjoy learning about the technology. If you have a chance, watch the recording of the webinar which should be available in a few days.

Continue reading “Introduction to Python Fundamentals – Lesson 1”

CS50 2019 Lecture 6 – Python

It is Friday afternoon and we are still observing social distancing restrictions and working from home. That said, things are slowly relaxing and more people are out and about. The number of cars on the road has more than tripled since the stay home order started a couple months ago. Please observer social distancing and wear a mask when in public. It is for your well being, your family and friends, your country, and all human beings on this planet.

Currently I am running some tests and writing documentation on some code I wrote earlier during the week. During idle times I am putting together the contents for this post. Hope to be done in the next hour or so. My wife left a minute ago to walk (keeping social distancing) with a neighbor. The day is sunny but rather cold. The temperature is in the upper 40’s. Continue reading “CS50 2019 Lecture 6 – Python”

Using with in Python

It is Wednesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. My wife and I spent most of the morning dealing with health insurance. Hopefully all will be done in the next few days. I am in the process of changing health insurance companies. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic everyone is using some type of video application to communicate. The proposed application was Zoom, but due to the security issues, we prefer using Jitsi. It did not take more than a minute to switch applications. It is interesting that video on Jitsi was working great but one of the participants decided to use our cell phones for voice because he did not have a camera or microphone on his computer. The cellular signals were not that great, but we managed. Continue reading “Using with in Python”

Working with Files – Python

A couple weeks ago one of my wife’s nice told her that there is a Costco store in Minneapolis that seems to sell different items and in larger packages than others. The Costco Minneapolis Business Center Warehouse is located at 3311 Broadway St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413-4553. We have not visited the store yet.

A couple days ago there was an article by CBS News titled Groceries could see meat shortages by end of week amid plant closings. I read it and twitted it. In addition I sent a message with the link to my two sons. Apparently they both decided to resupply on meats yesterday. One of my sons lives in Madison, WI so he just went to the Costco store near him. The other lives in MN. The one in WI periodically orders a side of beef and a side of pork. I believe he should be fine for a while.

My son who lives in MN decided to visit the Costco store on Broadway Street. He was impressed by the size of the packages of meat. The prices were very appealing. The only drawback for some might be that you need to buy a large and uncut piece (e.g., full rib eye) and when you get home you need to cut in servings, put them in plastic bags, and then store them in a freezer. If you do not do so and just put it in a freezer, you will have to consume it all in a few days after thawing it. You should never refreeze meats. My sons and we at home are used to this process. We get most of our protein at restaurant suppliers. Continue reading “Working with Files – Python”

Object Oriented Programming in Python

!!! UPDATE !!!

Sorry for the formatting issue on most screen captures. Not sure what happened. I went back and pasted the same text as before. It seems to be fine at this time. Not sure what is causing this to happen. Perhaps it is time to look for a better plugin :o(

Unless something changes in the next few days, MN should enter Phase One in the process of “Opening up America Again” next week. Hopefully all will go as planned.

I am not sure if there is something on my Windows computers, but one of the first things I do every day is to power each computer up and log on into Gmail. Most of the times I just click on my user name and my password and I am in Gmail. Now and then, I get prompted to enter a code which is sent as a message to my phone. I have a checkbox selected which should tell Google not to use 2FA on this computer, but it ignores my wishes and requests me to enter the code. Not sure why this is happening. It cannot be so difficult to Google to write such code. If you have comments on this subject please let me know. Continue reading “Object Oriented Programming in Python”

Python Tutorial – CS50

It is Thursday April 23, 2020 and in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul we are still in lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, but with some eased restrictions. The Federal Government has defined a very specific set of steps to gradually lift the quarantine in the country. Now it is up to the different States to apply the rules as they fit. If there is a recurrence then the state MUST go back to square one (full quarantine) and repeat the process somewhat slower in order not to overtax the healthcare system. Continue reading “Python Tutorial – CS50”

Python Basics with Numpy

In a previous post I commented on waking up exactly at 05:00 AM. This morning I woke up around 04:10 AM. I guess there is some variation every day on how much sleep you get based on several factors (i.e., physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, noise, temperature, food intake, among others). Continue reading “Python Basics with Numpy”

Broadcasting in Numpy

Broadcasting is a feature of Python and Numpy. When one is performing array operations, in some cases the shapes of the arguments do not match. The good and bad thing is that Python assumes what you want to happen and does it. In most cases the results are fine, but on occasions Python might do something that you are not expecting. This post discusses to some degree what is broadcasting. The idea is that we will be using it in a future post when doing some regressions for image recognition. Continue reading “Broadcasting in Numpy”

Numpy Vector Notes for Machine Learning

When learning and working with Python on machine learning it is important to make sure that Numpy arrays have the proper dimensions. Using improper dimensions may cause issues / bugs that are hard to track yet it is simple to prevent and we will see in this post. Continue reading “Numpy Vector Notes for Machine Learning”

Numpy Vectorization – Revisited

It is the last Sunday in January 2019 and is relatively cold in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The computerized mercury scale indicates -12F not taking into account wind. As usual, get up before 05:00 AM and get in my first 2 hour block of Deep Work. I am in the process of reviewing the last course I took on neural networks and deep learning. Continue reading “Numpy Vectorization – Revisited”