Python for Engineers

Python for Engineers

Duration: 3 Days

Description

This course exists for one specific situation: a developer who already knows how to program — just not in Python yet. Rather than starting from “what is a variable,” it moves at the pace of someone who already understands loops, functions, and data structures conceptually and simply needs the Python-specific syntax, idioms, and standard library to become productive fast. Three days cover the full practical range: the interpreter and script execution on both Unix and Windows, sequences and comprehensions (Python’s most distinctive feature for anyone coming from a more verbose language), file I/O, the OS module for automation and scripting tasks, and enough object-oriented Python to read and extend an existing codebase. The developer-tools module at the end — Pylint, unit testing, and debugging — ensures participants leave not just able to write Python, but able to write Python the way a Python team expects it written.

Audience

This course is built specifically for engineers and technical professionals translating existing programming experience into Python — the single biggest time-saver on this page for teams under a deadline. If your developers already know how to program in Java, C#, C++, or a similar language, sitting them through a beginner’s introduction to what a loop is wastes days they don’t have. This course assumes that competence and spends every hour on what’s actually different about Python: its data structures, its file-handling patterns, and the automation and tooling use cases (OS scripting, directory walking, environment variables) that make Python distinctly valuable to engineers who need to build internal tools, not just applications. It’s the course we recommend most often when a team asks how to get productive in Python without losing a full week to fundamentals they already have.

Objectives

  • Learn to navigate the Python interpreter and execute scripts efficiently on both Unix and Windows systems
  • Gain proficiency in variables, built-in functions, strings, and numbers, as well as mastering string formatting and command line parameters
  • Design and code modules and classes
  • Manipulate sequences like lists and tuples, handle dictionaries and sets, and perform file I/O operations with text and binary data
  • Explore advanced concepts like exception handling, OS services, modules, packages, and object-oriented programming to build complex and efficient Python applications
  • Implement and run unit tests

Prerequisites

Participants should have solid hands-on programming skills in at least one other language. Additionally, students are expected to be comfortable with JSON and csv files.

Related Python Courses

See the full Python training roadmap and course directory for how this fits into a broader learning path.

Most participants here previously worked in a language covered by our C# Development, Java Programming, or C++ Programming tracks. After this course, Advanced Python or PCPP1 Python Professional are natural next steps for engineers heading toward production Python work. Heading into AI application development instead? See Python Foundations and Python OpenAI API for Developers.

Course Outline

Module 1: The Python Environment

  • Starting Python
  • Using the Interpreter
  • Python Scripts on Unix/Windows

Module 2: Getting Started

  • Variables and Built-In Functions
  • Strings and Numbers
  • Type Converting
  • String Formatting
  • Command-Line Parameters

Module 3: Flow Control

  • Conditional Expressions
  • Relational and Boolean Operators
  • while and for Loops
  • Alternate Loop Exits

Module 4: Sequences

  • About Sequences
  • Lists and Tuples
  • Indexing and Slicing
  • Sequence Functions, Keywords, and Operators
  • List Comprehensions
  • Generator Expressions
  • Nested Sequences

Module 5: Working with Files

  • File Overview
  • Reading and Writing Text Files
  • Raw (Binary) Data

Module 6: Dictionaries and Sets

  • Creating Dictionaries
  • Iterating through a Dictionary
  • Creating Sets
  • Working with Sets

Module 7: Functions

  • Defining Functions
  • Variable Scope
  • Lambda Functions

Module 8: Errors and Exception Handling

  • Exceptions
  • Using try/catch/finally/else
  • Handling Multiple Exceptions
  • Ignoring Exceptions

Module 9: OS Services

  • The OS Module
  • Environment Variables
  • Launching External Commands
  • Walking Directory Trees
  • Paths, Directories, and File Names
  • Working with File Systems
  • Dates and Times

Module 10: Classes

  • Defining Classes
  • Constructors
  • Instance Methods and Data
  • Attributes
  • Inheritance
  • Multiple Inheritance

Module 11: Developer Tools

  • Analyzing Programs with Pylint
  • Creating and Running Unit Tests
  • Debugging Applications