2025-Programming
2025-2026 Programming for Chemistry course at the University of Milan
Programming for Chemistry
The course introduces students to imperative programming by referring to the Python language. The course is divided in two parts: the first presents Python and its object-oriented features, the second focuses on libraries that can be useful in scientific computation and data analysis, in particular NumPy and SciPy.
Where: Computer room to be announced
When: Tuesdays and Fridays 08:30-10:30
What: 48 hours (24 lab-lectures, 2 hours each)
Who: Dr. Davide Ceresoli, davide.ceresoli@cnr.it
General info
You are free to bring your own laptop. In this case, on first lecture you’ll be required to setup a working Python system with Jupyter or VSCode. If you prefer working in the cloud, you will be requested to setup a Google Colab account.
Text book
There are plenty of Python books/tutorial/course available for free, on many different topics. For example, a good book is How to think like a computer scientist in Python 3
Exam
Because of AI code assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, …) the exam will be individual and it will consist in few general questions + coding a simple algorithm.
Course schedule (tentative)
| Day | Hour | Room | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 23/09/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 01: Introduction to Python and tools |
| Fri 26/09/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 02: Variables, data types, operators, conditionals, loops |
| Tue 30/09/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 03: Functions #1: parameters, scope, return values |
| Fri 03/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 04: Functions #2: recursion, passing functions to functions |
| Tue 07/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 05: Strings, lists, tuples, sets, dictionaries |
| Fri 10/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 06: String processing, comprehensions, sorting, random numbers |
| Tue 14/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 07: Files I/O, text processing |
| Fri 17/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 08: Object Oriented Programming #1 |
| Tue 21/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 09: Object Oriented Programming #2 |
| Fri 24/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 10: Object Oriented Programming #3 |
| Tue 28/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 11: Let’s code a game |
| Fri 31/10/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 12: Free programming practice #1 |
| Fri 07/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 13: NumPy |
| Tue 10/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 14: Numpy + Matplotlib |
| Fri 14/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 15: SciPy |
| Tue 17/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 16: Applications to chemistry |
| Fri 21/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 17: SymPy (who needs Mathematica?) |
| Tue 24/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 18: Image processing |
| Fri 28/11/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 19: Fourier series (bring headphones) |
| Tue 02/12/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 20: ASE |
| Fri 05/12/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 21: |
| Tue 09/12/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 22: |
| Fri 12/12/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 23: |
| Tue 16/12/2025 | 08:30-10:30 | TBA | 24: Free programming practice #2 & Farewell |