Everything else is ready: study the parts, the key terms and the quiz below.
Why Python?
Say what Python is and why it is used for AI and machine learning, and know where Python code is written and run.
In this lesson4 parts
- 01What Python is: high level, general purpose and interpreted
- 02Why Python for machine learning: NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib, scikit-learn, TensorFlow and PyTorch
- 03Jupyter notebooks and Google Colab
- 04Recap and your first challenge
Key terms
The words this lesson introduces, each in one line. The module’s glossary collects them all.
- programming language
- precise rules for writing instructions a computer can carry out
- interpreted
- the interpreter executes code one statement at a time
- library
- published code your program can import and use
- notebook · cell
- a document made of cells; a code cell holds Python, a text cell holds notes
Quiz 5 questions
Answer each one in your head, or on paper, before you check it. Getting one wrong here is how the lesson sticks.
- 01
Python code is executed one statement at a time by a program. What is that program called?
- 02
Which library would you use for tables of data: NumPy, pandas or Matplotlib?
- 03
An online tutorial writes
print "hello". Why does it fail in Colab? - 04
What does a text cell in a notebook hold?
- 05
Where does the code in a Colab notebook run?
Practice
Problems to solve in your own notebook. Each states the problem, not the steps: working out the steps is the exercise. Level A applies the lesson, B combines it with earlier ones, C stretches it.
The self-checking notebook for this lesson is Notebook 1 · Getting Started.
Common mistakes
What you will see when it goes wrong, why it happens, and the fix.
Where it’s used
Where this lesson’s ideas turn up in real work.