Python for Absolute Beginners Transcripts
Chapter: Welcome to the course
Lecture: Programming is a superpower
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0:00
Let's start off with a question.
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Should you be a programmer?
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Sure, there's a bunch of people out there
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who love programming
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but it's probably not for everybody.
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Or is it?
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Well, let's look at it from a job perspective
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really quickly.
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In 2020, it's estimated that there'll be
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one million computer-related jobs that go unfilled.
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And often when you hear about policymakers talk
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about things like this, they say
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well what we need to do is train up a whole bunch of
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more computer scientists and send them out into the world
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so they can program all the things that need programming.
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I think this actually misses the point
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of what programming can be
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and also makes it a much more narrow area of study.
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It's not just about making a bunch of little programmers
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that can go out into the world and program the things
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and take all the jobs that we need to be filled.
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No. Programming is a superpower.
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And it's applicable for many, many more people
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than they initially realize.
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Here we have a little superhero who has some Python powers.
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Notice that she has a Python bag from the
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Python conference she's carrying around.
1:00
What do I mean by programming is a superpower?
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If you are a biologist, and you collect a bunch of data
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and you have tens of thousands of entries you got to go
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work with and it's more complicated than something like
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say, Excel could handle with.
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Well, what do you do?
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Hire a bunch of people to go through it?
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Hire some grad students?
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Or do you spend 10 minutes writing a little bit of
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Python code that within milliseconds can take
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all that data and generate the reports
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and give her the insights that she needs.
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Or if you're an economist, and you need to do some work
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with a bunch of financial data?
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Maybe you could make Excel do that
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maybe you could make some other software do it.
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But with just a little tiny bit of programming power
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you can automate whatever it is you're trying to
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study in the financial markets
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and you'll be so far ahead of anyone else that's trying
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to do that same thing who is not a programmer.
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So the perspective I want you to have throughout this course
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is that whatever you care about, are you in psychology?
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Are you in biology? Are you a physicist?
2:01
Are you in philosophy?
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Yes, philosophers, it also applies as well.
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Whatever you're into, if you learn a little bit of
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programming skill, you can take those mundane things
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that are hard to do, are tedious or take a long time
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or even maybe have too much data to even consider
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processing, with a little bit of programming experience
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you'll get in this course, you'll be able to go and
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automate that stuff and really supercharge
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whatever it is that you care about.
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So, yeah, maybe the world needs more programmers
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but what it really needs is a bunch of people who have
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expertise in something, and then they have a little bit of
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programming experience to make them much
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much more effective.
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Python's a really great place to get that power
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because it's so easy to get started with
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compared to other languages
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and there are many many libraries that we'll kind of
2:44
talk about throughout this course that are super useful.
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So, are you ready to be a superhero?
