Python for Biologists: A complete programming course for beginners

This book is a great resource for Bioinformaticians, specialists that work with sequencing data, analysis, and visual. It was recommended to me but another (amazing) Bioinformatician that learned Bioinformatics from a computer science perspective. I am quite the opposite, learning Bioinformatics from a Biology perspective. I have some experience with python outside of Bioinformatics, but not actually using python for Bioinformatic related tasks. This book has been extremely helpful for helping me get down the basic tasks used in analyzing sequencing data. The book provides content on an introduction to python programming environment, printing and manipulating text, reading and writing files, lists and loops, writing your own functions, conditional tests, regular expressions, dictionaries, and input files and programs. The beginning of the chapters provides an overview of the content followed by short exercises that are actually very stimulating. I was drawn into the book after finishing chapter 2 exercises. There are also solutions, and the solutions are mind-blowing in the sense that the author doesn’t just give you the right answer, he explains the way to approach the questions and the logic behind answering sequencing questions using programming. Furthermore, the solutions are also insightful for understanding how to troubleshoot your own, and how to check it, which are essential to using python for biology.

Excellent. Well written and organized. Only problem - it was TOO elementary; it really is for rank beginners (I am more "intermediate" level; should have read the description more closely <g>). I actually learned more "bio" then python. Good refresher anyway; I'll check out the "advanced" sequel book now I guess. If you are in the bio / bio-tech or related fields, and maybe know just a little coding but want to learn more and improve, and use a language that is very much used in science these days - this book is a worthy investment. It starts out detailing the fundamental syntax and structure of Python, using real world hypothetical examples that will be familiar to bio / chem / tech people, such as DNA sequence manipulations. It progresses from very simple code to progressively more advanced scripts, and in each case explaining well as it goes on. Chapters end with a concise review, examples and some practice problems - the best way to learn coding (or anything else). Highly recommend this. Cheers.

Great, great book. I think this is the perfect book for any biologist to who wants to start learning to code with Python. Right away the author has you writing programs that are actually useful for biologists (making a reverse-compliment of a dna strand, calculating A-T content, finding restriction enzyme sites, ect). I didn't know a command-line from a hole in the ground when I first opened up this book, and mere days later I was impressing my colleagues with my own DNA analysis programs. I actually have this book to thank for easing me into programming which is now something I do everyday as part of my profession.This book is definitely unique for biologists in that it has you learning some aspects of python that are useful for biological applications right away- techniques which are normally several chapters down the road in general programming books. That being said, if you want to get serious about coding, because this book doesn't go over all areas of python, you will be well-served by also getting a second general python programming introduction book that goes over stuff this book does not cover.

I bought this in the 6 months leading up to graduate school, hoping to learn a few skills that might be helpful. I started out afraid of programming and wanting to stay away from anything bioinformatics related. Now that I just finished the 7th chapter, I find he makes programming easy to learn, exciting, and consistently relevant to biology. Highly recommended as a start to programming for anyone interested in a career in biology research.

I was a total beginner, both for Python and programming. Now I feel that I have made my first steps thanks to this book. Programming does not seems so difficult now. Patience and discipline are one key, the other is a good guide like this book. Sadly other interesting fields in biology are not covered here

I obtained training in writing code decades ago in graduate school. Not having written any code since then resulted in those skills diminishing. However, I have just started going through Python for Biologists and find that the concepts are coming back, although in a new language, and I am having fun. This is going to have a major impact on my work. I highly recommend.

Python for Biologists does an amazing job of walking a novice programmer through biologically relevant programming for big data. The book is easy to read, easy to follow-along, and it makes the concepts easy to comprehend. I would recommend this book to anyone new to programming (especially first-year graduate students and undergraduates interested in analyzing genetic or genomic data).

text was very clearly written, good example problems throughout. would recommend to others like me that have lots of experience in R, are proficient in bash, and are looking to learn python as well.

I'm just starting to code and I really love the way this book is written. The exercises are useful and adequate for the level.

Very clear instructions, I was able to run the scripts after some troubleshooting. Very applicable to my program.

This book gave me hope. I have been genuinely struggling for the last months pursuing a phd only in a wet lab with the least bioinformatics you’ll need. Having only one post doc in the lab and trying to find out what career choices I have gave me a deep depression since I don’t see myself in the wet lab for the rest of my days. Being in the wet lab is nice and is fun if one is still young and can deal with stress, trauma and overworking. Since computers and games are my passion I tried to research and went anonymously reading Reddit posts about informatics in general and this book. First I couldn’t believe it but Dr. Jones gave me so much more than just basic knowledge on Bioinformatics for biologists. This book gave me hope that I can achieve whatever I want with my own will and some coins for a book. I think that this book (and ofc the rest of this series) is giving young biologists a perspective on how easy it is to achieve things which are not maybe taught by universities if one is in a PhD program. The way this book is written is so good and in my perspective acquires knowledge a masters student can easily bring along. Dr. Jones, thank you so much for helping me and so many other people out there. I genuinely feel happy and blessed that I have found this book and am achieving the goals I set for myself.

Python for Biologists: A complete programming course for beginners Highly recommended to any biologists (unsurprisingly) attempting to learn Python as their first programming language. The content is kept interesting and challenging by relating everything to problems one may have in their everyday research. Even after just using the book for about an hour a night for a few days, I managed to write and apply my own code to edit files containing DNA sequences to change their format, saving me the painstaking process of having to do it manually. I fully intend to buy the sequel.

Very well written and helpful