Foundational Python – Vets Who Code

1. Intro to Programming & Python

• How programs work
• What Python is and why we use it
• Setting up Python 3 and the development environment
• Running Python interactively and with .py files

2. Learning How to Learn

• Using documentation (help(), dir())
• Reading official Python docs
• Code style and PEP 8 basics

3. Core Data Types

• Integers, floats, strings, booleans
• Type conversion

4. Variables & Expressions

• Assigning values
• Arithmetic, comparison, and logical operators

5. Strings

• Indexing, slicing, concatenation
• Common string methods and f-strings

6. Lists, Tuples, Dictionaries, and Sets

• Creating, accessing, modifying
• When to use each type

7. Control Flow

• if, elif, else statements
• for and while loops
• break and continue
• Pattern Matching with match/case (Python 3.10+)
  • Basic value matching
  • Default case with _
  • Matching patterns like tuples and lists

8. Functions

• Defining and calling
• Parameters, arguments, and return values
• Scope (local vs global)

9. Modules & Imports

• Standard library overview (math, random, datetime, os)

10. File I/O

• Reading and writing text files
• Context managers (with statement)

11. Error Handling & Debugging

• try, except, finally
• Reading tracebacks
• Using print() and the debugger

12. Advanced Language Features

• List comprehensions
• Sets and set operations
• Intro to classes and objects