Learn to Program: The Fundamentals

Behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap, there is a computer program that makes things happen. This course introduces the fundamental building blocks of programming and teaches you how to write fun and useful programs using the Python language.

• Python, Variables, and Functions
• This module gives an overview of the course, the editor we will use to write programs, and an introduction to fundamental concepts in Python including variables, mathematical expressions, and functions.
• Strings and Designing Functions
• This module introduces strings (a Python data type used to represent text), and a process to follow when creating a function.
• Booleans, Import, Namespaces, and if Statements
• This module introduces Booleans (logical values True and False), how to convert between types, how to use Boolean expressions in if statements to selectively run code, and the concept of a Python module.
• For Loops and Fancy String Manipulation
• This module introduces one way to repeat code (using a for loop), how to manipulate strings, and how to use a debugger to watch a program execute step by step.
• While Loops, Lists, and Mutability
• This module introduces another way to repeat code (using a while loop), how to properly document your code to help other programmers understand it, Python's list data type, and the concept of mutation.
• For Loops Over Indices, Parallel and Nested Lists and Strings, and Files
• This module introduces how to use a for loop over the indexes of a list, how to nest lists, and how to read a write files.
• Tuples and Dictionaries
• This module introduces tuples (an immutable version of lists), and Python's dictionary type.