CSIT881 - Programming and Data Structures

My Learning on Python

The CSIT881 course provided a foundational understanding of Python programming and data structures. Although some concepts covered were quite basic, it was a valuable review and reinforcement of key principles. Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of what was covered in the course:

1. Basic Concepts

• Syntax and Semantics
• Data Types (int, float, str, bool, etc.)
• Variables
• Operators (arithmetic, comparison, logical, etc.)

Covered

2. Control Flow

• Conditional Statements (if, elif, else)
• Loops (for, while)
• Break and Continue

Covered

3. Functions

• Defining Functions (def)
• Arguments and Parameters
• Return Values
• Lambda Functions
• Variable Scope (local, global)

Covered

4. Data Structures

• Lists
• Tuples
• Sets
• Dictionaries
• List Comprehensions
• Generators and Iterators

Covered

5. Error Handling

• Exceptions (try, except, finally)
• Raise Exceptions
• Custom Exceptions

Covered

6. File Handling

• Reading from and Writing to Files
• File Modes
• File Context Managers (with statement)

Covered

7. Modules and Packages

• Importing Modules
• Creating Modules
• Package Management (pip, virtualenv)
• Standard Library

Not Covered

8. Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

• Classes and Objects
• Attributes and Methods
• Inheritance
• Encapsulation
• Polymorphism
• Special Methods (e.g., __init__, __str__, __repr__)

Partially Covered (Classes and Objects)

9. Decorators and Higher-Order Functions

• Function Wrappers
• Class Decorators
• Partial Functions

Not Covered

10. Concurrency

• Threads
• Multiprocessing
• Asyncio
• Async/Await

Not Covered

11. Data Manipulation and Analysis

• List and Dict Manipulation
• NumPy (arrays, matrix operations)
• Pandas (DataFrames, Series)
• Data Visualization (Matplotlib, Seaborn)

Not Covered

12. Testing and Debugging

• Unit Testing (unittest, pytest)
• Debugging Techniques (pdb, logging)

Not Covered

13. Web Development

• Web Frameworks (Flask, Django)
• RESTful APIs
• HTTP Requests and Responses

Not Covered

14. Data Serialization

• JSON
• Pickle

Not Covered

15. Libraries and Frameworks

• Machine Learning (scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch)
• Web Scraping (BeautifulSoup, Scrapy)

Not Covered

16. Memory Management

• Garbage Collection
• Memory Leaks

Not Covered

17. Miscellaneous

• Regular Expressions
• Command-Line Arguments (argparse)
• Context Managers

Not Covered

Overall Overview

The course is excellent for beginners new to Python programming, providing a solid foundation. However, for experienced developers, it may not offer much new insight.

My Thoughts

While I do feel a bit of regret that the course content was relatively basic for my level, it has been a useful refresher and reinforced my Python skills. On the bright side, Python is now my primary language, and the course has served its purpose in solidifying my foundation.

Lectures