python Tag Archives - General Assembly Blog

What’s one thing that Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, will.i.am, Chris Bosh, Karlie Kloss, and I, a data science instructor at General Assembly, all have in common? We all think you should learn how to code.

There are countless reasons to learn how to code, even if you don’t want to become a full-time programmer:

• Programming teaches you amazing problem-solving skills.
• You’ll be better able to collaborate with engineers and developers if you can “speak their language.”
• It enables you to help build the technologies of the future, including web applications, machine learning models, chatbots, and anything else you can imagine.

To most people, learning to program — or even choosing what language to learn — seems daunting. I’ll make it simple: Python is an excellent place to start.

Python is an immensely popular programming language commonly used by data analysts, data scientists, and software engineers. In addition to being one of the most popular — it’s used by companies like Google, SpaceX, and Instagram to do a huge variety different things including data cleaning, build AI models, building web apps, and more — Python stands out for being very simple to read and write, while offering extreme flexibility and having an active community.

Here’s a cool example of just how simple Python is: Here is code that tells the computer to print the words “Hello World”:

In Python:

Yup, that’s really all it takes! For context, let’s compare that to another popular programming language, Java, which has a steeper learning curve (though is still a highly desirable skill set in the job market).

Clearly, Python requires much less code.

Let’s talk about some of the ways in which Python is used today, including automating a process, building the functionality of an application, or delving into machine learning.

Here are some fascinating examples of how Python is shaping the world we live in:

• Hollywood special effects: Remember that summer blockbuster with the huge explosions? A lot of companies, including Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), use Python to help program those awesome special effects. By using Python, companies like ILM have been able to develop standard toolkits that they can reuse across productions, while still retaining the flexibility to build custom effects in less time than ever before.
• File-sharing applications: When Dropbox was created in 2007, it used Python to build the desktop applications and server infrastructure responsible for actually sharing the files. After more than a decade, Python is still powering the company’s desktop applications. In other words, Dropbox was able to write a single application for both Macs and PCs that still works after more than a decade!
• Web applications: Python is used to run various parts of some of today’s most popular websites, including Pinterest, Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube. In fact, Pinterest has used Python in some form since it was founded (e.g., to power its web app, build and maintain data pipelines, and perform analyses).
• Artificial intelligence: Python is especially popular in the artificial intelligence community, again for its ease of use and flexibility. For example, in just a few hours, a business could build a basic chatbot that answers some of the most common questions from its customers. To do this, programmers could use Python to scrape the contents of all of the email exchanges with the company’s customers, identify common themes in these exchanges with visualizations, and then build a predictive model that can be used by the chatbot application to give appropriate responses.

General Assembly focuses on building practical experience when learning new technical skills. We want students to walk away from our data science courses and bootcamps equipped to tackle the challenges they’re facing in their own lives and careers.

Python at General Assembly section, change the second graf to:

Many of our courses are designed to teach folks with limited exposure to Python to use it to answer real business questions. Dive into fundamental concepts and techniques, and build your own custom web or data application in our part-time Python Programming course. Or learn to leverage the language as part of our full-time Data Science Immersive program, part-time Data Science course, or a one-day Python bootcamp. Projects students have tackled include visualizing SAT scores from across the country, scraping data from public websites, identifying causes of airplane delays, and predicting Netflix ratings based on viewer sentiment and information from IMDB.

Michael Larner is a passionate leader in the analytics space who specializes in using techniques like predictive modeling and machine learning to deliver data-driven impact. A Los Angeles native, he has spent the last decade consulting with hundreds of clients, including 50-plus Fortune 500 companies, to answer some of their most challenging business questions. Additionally, Michael empowers others to become successful analysts by leading trainings and workshops for corporate clients and universities, including General Assembly’s part-time Data Analytics course and SQL/Excel workshops in Los Angeles.