unit-4.md

Unit 4 Agenda

Objectives

In this unit, we'll illustrate the concept of program-data independence as we explore integrations between software and datastores. We'll focus on the Comma-separated Values (CSV) data format and learn how to use Python to process CSV data.

Slides

Discussions and Notes

• Program-Data Independence
• Datastores, Databases, and CSV Files
• File Management
• The os Module
• The itertools Module
• Package Management w/ the pip Utility
• Processing CSV Files:
  • The csv Module
  • The pandas Package

FYI: If you are interested in analytics and data science, you might find it valuable to learn how to use the data processing capabilities of the Pandas package.

FYI: We're using a CSV file datastore here for simplicity. If you already know SQL, you might be interested to know you can use Python to connect to relational databases as well:

• The psycopg Package (for PostgreSQL databases)
• The pymysql Package (for MySQL databases)

Activities and Exercises

• "Grocery Store Expansion" Exercise
• "Sales Reporting" Exercise