An introduction to Python and LaTeX

The BSc Informatics course conducted by University of Calicut is based completely on Free Software. Students are required to study the Python programming language and also learn how to prepare technical documents using LaTeX. Majority of the students have a computing background limited to using Microsoft Windows for simple tasks like web browsing. An introduction to Python and LaTeX has the objective of providing a gentle introduction to computing to such an audience.

Because most of the readers would be either Mathematics teachers or undergraduate Math students, sample programs are structured around simple mathematical concepts. No attempt has been made to go deep into language syntax - my experience with conducting several workshops for teachers has been that any attempt to introduce syntax elements whose application can’t be demonstrated immediately through simple math examples usually leads to confusion. So, this book will not be an ideal resource for people who wish to master Python syntax and idioms in depth. There are plenty of great resources on the net for that, one of the best being Dive into Python (available at http://www.diveintopython.org).

Please note that this book is a work in progress.

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License

This book is published under the GNU FDL

How to build the book from source

This book is written using an excellent tool called Sphinx. Sphinx allows you to write in simple restructured text format - the conversion to HTML (for display in a browser) as well as LaTeX (for printing) is done by Sphinx. You are reading the Sphinx generated book right now! Source files are available from GitHub.

A little bit about my book-writing workflow. I maintain a git repo on my home machine from where I occasionally push to GitHub. I have another git repository on my Linode slice which hosts the book - occasional pulls from github combined with a build which directly delivers HTML files to the web server’s (I use Nginx - do try it out if you find Apache to be a memory hog) static files folder is all that is needed to “publish” the book!

Contents

• 1. An introduction to the GNU/Linux Operating System
  • 1.1. Installing GNU/Linux
  • 1.2. Using GNU/Linux
  • 1.3. The GNU/Linux Command line
• 2. Getting started with Python
  • 2.1. First steps - use Python as a calculator!
  • 2.2. A few things about the way Python treats numbers
  • 2.3. Arithmetic using very large integers
  • 2.4. Using variables
  • 2.5. Mistakes made by beginners while using variables
  • 2.6. Use of the space character in Python
  • 2.7. Exiting Python
  • 2.8. Exercises
• 3. Using Python Lists
  • 3.1. Elementary list manipulation
    • 3.1.1. Creating a list
    • 3.1.2. Indexing a list
    • 3.1.3. Modifying the elements of a list
    • 3.1.4. Appending elements to a list
    • 3.1.5. Deleting an element from a list
• 4. Introduction to Numeric Arrays
  • 4.1. Using Modules in Python
    • 4.1.1. Another way to use modules
  • 4.2. Creating Numeric Arrays
• 5. Doing math with Numeric Arrays
  • 5.1. Plotting a sine curve
  • 5.2. Plotting the polar rose
  • 5.3. Labels and title
  • 5.4. Exercises
• 6. Defining Functions
  • 6.1. Function basics
    • 6.1.1. A few technical terms
    • 6.1.2. Functions with multiple statements in the body
  • 6.2. What does ‘return’ do?
  • 6.3. Boolean Functions
  • 6.4. Using if-else statements
  • 6.5. Exercises
• 7. Functions with side effects
  • 7.1. Modeling a bank account
• 8. Understanding the while loop
  • 8.1. A simple while loop
  • 8.2. A loop which terminates
  • 8.3. Finding HCF using Euclid’s method
  • 8.4. Defining a function to compute HCF of two numbers
• 9. Finding square root by Newton’s iteration
  • 9.1. Programming as Essay writing
  • 9.2. Finding square roots
  • 9.3. Writing a square root finding program
    • 9.3.1. Defining average
    • 9.3.2. Defining improve
    • 9.3.3. Defining good_enough
    • 9.3.4. Defining the square root function
  • 9.4. Conclusion
• 10. Strings, Tuples and Associative Arrays
  • 10.1. What is a string?
    • 10.1.1. Elementary string handling
  • 10.2. What is a tuple?
  • 10.3. What is an Associative Array?
  • 10.4. Processing lists/tuples with for loops
• 11. Programming with classes and objects
  • 11.1. Representing a student
  • 11.2. Using classes and objects
  • 11.3. Rewriting better_student
  • 11.4. Improving the student class
• 12. Exception Handling
  • 12.1. Syntax Errors
  • 12.2. Exceptions
  • 12.3. Exercises
• 13. Handling data files
  • 13.1. Writing a message to a file
  • 13.2. Writing and reading multiple lines
  • 13.3. Writing and reading numerical data
• 14. Introduction to the LaTeX Document Preparation System
  • 14.1. A Simple LaTeX document
  • 14.2. What does LaTeX really do?
  • 14.3. Sections and sub-sections
  • 14.4. Lists, Quotes and Quotations
  • 14.5. Handling errors
• 15. Typesetting Mathematics
  • 15.1. The three environments - math, displaymath and equation
  • 15.2. A few examples
• 16. Pictures and Colours in LaTeX
  • 16.1. The LaTeX “picture” environment
  • 16.2. Drawing Lines
    • 16.2.1. Horizontal lines
    • 16.2.2. Vertical lines
    • 16.2.3. Slanted lines (neither vertical nor horizontal)
  • 16.3. Circles, ovals and bezier curves
  • 16.4. Using the “graphics” package
    • 16.4.1. Scaling, Rotation, Colour change
    • 16.4.2. Displaying images
  • 16.5. Using “pstricks” for advanced picture drawing
• 17. Appendix 1 - Writing Stand-alone Python programs
  • 17.1. Using an editor in GNU/Linux
  • 17.2. Writing a Python program using gedit
  • 17.3. Performing keyboard input