Python distribution

Use Python 3 instead of Python 2, Python 2 is no longer supported as of January 2020.

I recommend using Anaconda Python, which features a full suite of data science libraries.

Libraries

The must have Python resources:

• Numpy is the package to use for data and linear algebra and is widely supported by other libraries.(Quickstart guide)

• Matplotlib.pyplot the standard for plotting in python. Can be used for line, bar, contour, and 3d plots (and more!) (Tutorials)

• Pandas great tool for working with large sets of data. Good excel/csv input/output. Lots of indexing, slicing, grouping functionality

• xarray adds additional functionality to numpy, such as dimensions, coordinates, and attributes. My go-to for reading/writing netCDF4 and HDF5 data files.

Beginners Guides

• https://www.learnpython.org/ provides a good set of interactive tutorials
• https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-python another good interactive guide, but uses python 2 instead of 3 (differences are minimal at this level)
• https://github.com/karan/Projects-Solutions/blob/master/README.md a list of good programming project ideas, along with sample code in various languages