paulgfahey / python-neuro2018

Introduction to Scientific Computation in Python for Neuroscientists 2018

Edgar's Guide to Introductory Python and Neuroanalysis 2018

Welcome! In this repository, you will find course materials for the Introductory Python and Neuroanalysis course that I am running at Baylor College of Medicine for July 2018. Come back periodically to see new material added as we progress through the course.

Getting started

Create an account on GitHub

In this course you will be using your GitHub account to sign in to the Jupyter Hub environment for the first two sessions. Later in the course, we will be making a heavy use of Git and GitHub to organize your code and submit homework assignments. So be sure to create an account on GitHub if you don't already have one. If you are a student at an educational institution, be sure to check out https://education.github.com/pack for their wonderful Student Developer Pack!

Signing up on Slack

Throughout the course, I will be using Slack for answering questions and making announcements. Be sure to sign up to Edgar's Guide Slack group by clicking here. Your will need to use an educational institutional email address to sign up. If your institution's email domain is not listed, please contact me, and I will add them.

Installing Python on your system

While the first two sessions will use Jupyter Hub which allows you to dive into Python programming without any setup on your system, you will want to setup and use Python environment on your local machine for later sessions - after all, you are here to learn how to use Python for your own research and development!

Please follow the instructions below to install Python via Anaconda distribution for your respective operating system:

• macOS
• Windows

Installing Git on your system

Starting from the Week 2, we will use Git to keep track and manage our code for the course. Git is a versioning system that lets you keep track of changes made by you or any other person working on the code. When used together with GitHub, it becomes an excellent way to backup, share and collaborate on your coding project.

Please be sure to visit Git's website and download & install Git for your operating system.

While we are going to learn how to use Git in the course, you are strongly encouraged to read up and learn a bit about it yourself too! Atlassian provides an excellent collection of tutorials on Git, and I strongly recommend you to read their Git Beginner Tutorial and Getting Started Tutorial.