Welcome to the course

• we are going to have fun!
• Tutorials on Tuesdays 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm on Zoom
• Office Hours (signup on OWL) Thursdays 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm on Zoom

Info

• Paul Gribble
• [email protected]
• course schedule and all info are found at https://www.gribblelab.org/scicomp2020
• assignments are submitted on OWL at https://owl.uwo.ca
• discussion forums are on OWL https://owl.uwo.ca
• The TA for the course is Chad Buckland ([email protected])
• Chad is your first contact

This course: What it is

• you will learn to code
• you will learn basic programming paradigms
• basic coding skills
• we will use Python

This course: What it is not

• not: learn all the ins and outs of Python packages
• not: learn to use Python IDEs
• not: be a “Python expert”

Goals

• learn to write high level code to solve problems, get answers
• learn to think algorithmically
• learn some useful computational approaches

Goals

• basic competence writing simple programs to do useful things
• this is then a jumping point to more advanced things
• you will learn basic programming skills here
• then you can extend your skills on your own

Grades

• 10 weekly assignments (10 x 3 marks each)
• 0: you didn’t hand it in
• 1: many problems with the code
• 2: few problems with the code
• 3: no problems with the code
• I would love for everyone to get 100%

Fundamentals

• lots of simple programs, toy problems, exercises
• like doing scales in music or drills in sports
• build up your basic skills
• then we will look at one or two more advanced topics if we have time
• it’s up to you to take your basic skills and apply them to your own research-related challenges in the future

Software

• We will the Anaconda Python distribution)
• I will use the iPython shell. You may also consider using jupyter notebooks
• Use an editor of your choice. I like Sublime Text. There’s also Atom, and Visual Studio Code, and others