W2 Python / NLTK

Python Tutorial

In case you don’t know any Python whatsoever, I’ve prepared a Python Tutorial, which you can download here. It is supposed to be a super easy introduction to Python. You can get it in the Downloads folder (look for it in the menu, at the left of this page). There you’ll find a folder called “Week 2”, and a file called “W2 Intro to Python.ipynb”.

As explained in the last week, you will use Jupyter Notebook to open this file. Assuming you already have it installed, you should:

• Open you terminal
• cd to the place where you downloaded the file “W2 Intro to Python.ipynb”
• Write, in your terminal, jupyter notebook
• A page in your browser will open. Select the file “W2 Intro to Python.ipynb” in that page.

Make sure to play around with the code there. This will help in your learning process. The tutorial is written under the assumption that 100% of your experience with programming comes from the Java classes you took in the first semester.

If you already know Python, you might want to skip this tutorial. Maybe you also already know some Python, and prefer to just read certain parts. If you don’t like my tutorial, you are 100% free to look for other materials on the internet. The following is a list of the things I cover in the tutorial. I’m leaving this here in case you prefer to just read certain parts of the tutorial, to make sure you know them.

• Variables (declaration, assignment, typing)
• Operators (sum, subtraction, …)
• Data structures
  • Tuples
  • Lists
  • Dictionaries
• If-statements (if, elif, else)
• Loops (while, for)
• Functions (motivation, examples)
• Manipulating strings
• Lists (revisited)
• String formatting
• Lists (list comprehensions, list access)

Do notice that this is a very very very introductory tutorial. You should not expect to know everything about Python after this tutorial. This will only be a good “warm up exercise” for the next things we will learn.

You are more than welcome to post forum questions whenever you have doubts.

Using the NLTK

I also created a file called “W2 Intro to NLTK.ipynb”, which you can access here. In there, you’ll have a written version of the videos of this week. I guess I could say these are my “lecture notes”. I thought I’d leave it in there in case you prefer to learn from written material instead of videos.

Otherwise, you can watch the videos below: