Links to useful Python info, such as tutorials

General Python tutorials / skills

Good intoductory tutorials for learning Python.

• Basic tutorial: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/
• The archived Python mailing list
• General (computational) programming tutes, focused around Python:
  • Rur-Ple: - An interactive tutorial about Python, based around programming a simple robot - looks fun!
  • Alan Gauld’s quick programming tutorial - http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/
• Software Carpentry: http://software-carpentry.org/ (A good all-round intro to Software for scientists & engineers, but with a particular focus on Python)
• S Lott’s Building Skills in Python - looks really good.
  • Includes a section on writing CSV, XML and other file formats.
• Michael Foord’s Python Articles page - includes good articles on eg Testing, and Duck Typing in Python.
• The book Python for Software Design - how to think like a Computer Scientist, (direct html link) has some good examples couched in general programmer skill training.

Tutorials particularly from the perspective of those with experience in Perl scripting, and Bash scripting:

• Python and Perl tutorial: http://xahlee.org/perl-python/index.html - showing examples of how to do common tasks in both languages.
• Red Hat Magazine’s “Python for Bash Scripters - a well-kept secret”

Tutorials more for the appropriate ‘software engineering’ in Python

• Tutorial on making & managing distributable packages: http://guide.python-distribute.org/

Python libraries of interest for scientific analysis

Regarding these libraries, there is potential for their future integration into the standard CREDO toolbox - but for now users are free to download and experiment with them.

• HDF5 analysis in Python: http://h5py.alfven.org/