MindCORE is offering a series of programming tutorials via Zoom for all Penn affiliates, including students, faculty, and staff.

This course is for anyone seeking to learn or sharpen their knowledge of computer programming. We cover important concepts often missed or poorly understood, to develop an intuitive understanding for why programming is the way that it is. The first session will review larger concepts applicable to every coding language, namely the structure of computer hardware, data, and code. Sessions two through four are focused on specific languages: Matlab/Octave, R, and Python. Attending the first session is highly recommended for all attendees. Session two (Matlab/Octave) is highly recommended for all beginners.

These sessions are free, but registration is required. To register, please email pennmindcore@sas.upenn.edu with your name, Penn affiliation, and the date of the class(es) you’d like to take. A Zoom link will be included with your registration confirmation.

Introduction to Coding in Science
Tuesday October 12 – Friday October 15
via Zoom

Tuesday October 12, 2-4pm
Foundations and Basics
1. Coding as a researcher
– Code abstraction
– Interfacing
2. Computer Basics
– Information vs. data vs. code
– Computer anatomy and information flow
3. Data fundamentals
– Data types
– Memory-spaces: registers, stack, heap, storage
– Name-spaces and scoping,
4. Code fundamentals
– Statements: bindings, assignments, scope, name-spaces revisited
– Variables, operators, routines
5. Getting started
– Programming paradigms: procedural, object-oriented, functional
– Overview of commonly used languages
– Choosing a language
– Setting up your environment (Hands on)

Wednesday October 13, 2-4pm
Number wrangling – Hands on in MATLAB/Octave
– Basic calculation
– Functions
– Numeric types and strings
– Arrays and matrices
– Indexing and subscripting
– Logic
– Conditionals
– Loop

Thursday October 14, 2-4pm
Data wrangling – Hands on in R
– Coming to R from Matlab
– Writing analysis scripts
– Data-tables (Pandas in Python)
– Basic statistical analysis
– Plotting

Friday October 15, 2-4pm
Code wrangling – Hands on in Python
– Coming to Python from Matlab or R
– Collections: (im)mutable and (un)named collections
– Advanced functions
– Classes and objects made easy
– Using and creating modules
– Data-tables and Arrays in python