WIMTACH’s Workshop Series: The Online Data Analysis using Python workshop provides industry professionals with tools to successfully program with Python


Photo:
James Harrison

For many years, the concept of a “universal language” that can be spoken and understood worldwide was popular among sociology scientists. Interestingly enough, such a language already exists, and it’s called Python.
Python is a programming language that is understood by over 4.3 million people worldwide. It is far from being the most popular language but is certainly universal, enabling you to communicate with colleagues in India, Germany, the Philippines, or anywhere else. So how would you go about starting to learn Python? Or what else can you learn if you already code well in Python? The Online Data Analysis using Python workshop by Sreekumar Pillai provides a detailed and interesting entry way into greater understanding for participants who are new to Python as well as experienced programmers. The workshop encompasses the basic tools needed for Python as well as more specialized skills from the Data Analysis industry.

Sreekumar, spoke about Python’s role in our life. He said, “Python runs most of the software you use daily, but also it works great with data analysis which is crucial for most organizations.” The main reason for Python’s popularity among programmers is the approach developers took to make it more “word-based,” making the code simple to read and learn. Also, as the code is so simple to write, it takes substantially less time to write the same amount of “actions” in Python than in other programming languages. Therefore, many organizations prefer Python for their IT operations as a low-cost, easy-to-maintain and universal programming language. Sreekumar carefully advised participants new to Python on how to begin, enabling many to make the first step on their programming journey.

As for how Python can be used in specialised environments, Sreekumar elaborated its benefit in Data Analysis. He said, “Python has shown exceptional performance in data analysis as a simple, extremely efficient and universal tool, making data analysis more accessible to business owners than ever.” However, for many beginning programmers, the issue behind starting is a lack of a suitable and accessible platform to practice. Sreekumar, in turn, presented Google Collab to the whole class. Google Collab is a tool developed for practicing coding and a benchmark for professionals to test and execute their programs. Using it and a few custom Python libraries (sets of instructions made to simplify specialized coding), Sreekumar presented a small exercise that all the participants could try out. By assisting them individually, Sreekumar helped everyone to get a code sequence to run with no errors and to produce results that would be useful to an organization.

After practicing writing code in Google Collab, each participant could create their own code using the built-in features to assist them. Many participants didn’t know Python at all before the workshop. However, after the exercise, they were all enabled to write custom data analysis code. Sreekumar said, “Python is the most versatile tool in the world, and now you know it.”

This workshop is scheduled to repeat every week to provide participants with more practice and feedback.








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Nov, 16, 2022

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