Next Step after Learning the Basics of Python Programming

Hello there,

Today I want to share with you things you could do after completing the fundamentals in Python. There is always this dilemma on what NEXT after learning and completing the basic fundamentals of Python Programming.

I will attempt to solve this using my experience after being in similar situation few years ago.

Shortest Solution

The shortest answer will be that: its depend on what you want to use python for, learn related libraries in that niche. For example, if your in the Geospatial/GIS industry then go ahead and search PyPI for related libraries and learn them.

Long Solution

Now its time to program something useful to you in Python and put that theoretical knowledge to accomplishing something practical!

Pick any topic that interests you and learn the libraries related to it. There are many tutorials and documentation out for just about any library you wish to learn.

As you go through tutorial or documentation with code in it, type in all of the code and make it work. That's how I do it. That's how every programmer does it.

Find a project that interests you and try to solve it using Python. It could be in any of the following fields:-

~ Web and Internet Development
~ Scientific and Numeric
~ Education
~ Desktop GUIs
~ Software Development
~ Business Applications

Python Project Ideas

Here you will find list of practical projects to try out. 

Reading JSON file into Pandas DataFrame

I wanted to read in a JSON object on a python pandas dataframe for further processing. So, I tried the default pandas read JSON method: read_json('file.json'), but I got just the JSON strings returned in the dataframes's row as seen below. That isn't what I was expecting....

Fortunately for me, pandas has a solution for this in its json_normalize class that “Normalize” semi-structured JSON data into a flat table.

So, I read the JSON file and applied the "json_normalize()" class and boom my semi-structured JSON data was converted into a flat table as seen above.

That was it!

Convert Projected coordinates (Northings/Eastings) to Geographical (Latitude/Longitude) using Python

Generally, there are two types of coordinate systems used to represent Geospatial data namely:-
1) Geographical Coordinate Systems - Polar coordinates assumes the earth is spheroid/geoid/ellipsoid/curve (Latitude/Longitude). Example: World Geodetic System (WGS) 1984. Geographic coordinate systems are based on a spheroid and utilize angular units (degrees).

2) Projected Coordinate Systems - Rectangular coordinates assumes the earth is flat (Northings/Eastings).Example: Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Zone 33. Projected coordinate systems are based on a plane (the spheroid projected onto a 2D surface) and utilize linear units (feet and meters)

Download Nigeria Geo dataset for States, LGA and Ward levels

Hello,
Are you looking for a complete and comprehensive Geo dataset of Nigeria? Are you looking for complete map of Nigeria at States, LGA and Ward levels?

If yes, then you have come to the right website. Here you can download complete map of Nigeria at States, LGA and Ward levels in different file formats including image files, PDF, shapefile, CSV, GeoJSON, XML etc.

Check out the samples below and download. If you have special request, feel free to contact me and I will convert and provide it for you asap.

Download ward map in shapefile format from here.

Download the Shapefile: Three levels of administrative boundaries in Nigeria (State, LGAs and Wards) here.

Download Maps

Download the Shapefile: Three levels of administrative boundaries in Nigeria (State, LGAs and Wards) here.

Download ward map in shapefile format from here.






Thanks for following...
Website: www.UmarYusuf.com
Tel: +2348039508010

Web Mapping - case study of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria Main Campus (Samaru, Sabo LGA Kaduna State)

Hello there,

In today's post, I will share how to produce a Campus Web Map using free and open source tools.

I will use ABU Zaria as an example. Let's get started....

You need the vector (shapefile) map of the campus. If you don't have one, you can easily obtain a copy from the ABU GIS unit or you can digitize your copy from available google earth satellite image.

You can use any GIS software for this... here I use a free software called QGIS.

There are several free and open source methods of deploying the shapefile map to the web. Some notable method am going to discuss in few moment include:-
1) Google Map Engine
2) QGIS2Web plugin
3) Open Street Map
4) Python Folium Library

Choose any of the methods above to create your web map (there are many guide and tutorials on the internet or contact me for help).

Happy mapping.

Setting up virtual environment (virtualenv) for python app development

When working on fairly large app in python, it is a good practice to create/setup an isolated python environment (called virtual environment - virtualenv) for development.

There are many long term reason for setting up a python's virtual environment (virtualenv) for any project you are working on. The notable once include:
1) When you have to experiment with something new.

2) When you want to use two different versions of package and compare them.

3) Virtualenv really shines when you have a number of projects, and don't want them to all share the same Python installation. For example, you could have two project with conflicting requirements.

4) Virtualenv will let you define isolated Python runtime environments without harming the root or system python installation. This comes in handy when deploying several python applications and you want to isolate the different environments. Typically this is needed when runtime dependencies differ between frameworks or libraries in different applications.

Creating a virtual environment

Step 1: Create a folder where you want to have the python virtual environment

Step 2: Open CMD or terminal window in that folder

Step 3: Enter "virtualenv name_of_folder" on the cmd/terminal

At this point, you did have a virtual environment created.

Using a virtual environment

Step 1: Open CMD or terminal window in that folder
Step 2: Enter "folder_name\Scripts\activate"
Step 3: To deactivate, simply enter "deactivate"
Step 4: To install packages enter "pip install package_name"
Step 5: To view the install packages enter "pip freeze"
Step 6: To save the install packages to file, enter "pip freeze > file_name.txt"

That is it!

QGIS - Restore Missing Vector menu such as: Geometry Tools

Hello,

There is a bug in the 2.16.0 Nodebo version of QGIS. This bug hides some vector processing tools (GDAL tools) found under the "Vector" menu. As already reported here... on the QGIS issues tracking page. This is caused as a result of installing "processing tools" as an external plugin.

Here is how to fix it

To fix this, go to "Plugins" menu and search for "Processing" plugin and enable it.

That is it!
Happy mapping...:)

How to make Custom Google Map of Nigeria displaying the state capitals

In this post, I will guide you to make a customized Google map displaying the capitals of all the states in Nigeria with additional information attached to each state capital.

I will also show you how to embed it to any html web page.

Let's get started...

Requirements

1) A Google account
2) CSV file containing the states information including longitude and latitude of the state capitals

Elshayal Smart GIS and Google Earth Compatibility Error [FIXED]

There has been serious complains on this error: *** Please be sure that Elshayal Smart GIS and Google Earth are opened and running as the same, either as adminstrators or as not adminstrators. ***

With this error, there are fear that the Elshayal software is not longer useful for downloading of free images from Google Earth. That is wrong, and here I am going to share with you the solution to fix this error.

This error is largely due to the usage of non-compatible versions of Elshayal Smart GIS and Google Earth.

At the moment of writing this post, the latest compatible versions of the software are:
Elshayal Smart GIS = 17.011
Google Earth = 7.1.7.2606

Elshayal Smart GIS version 17.011

Google Earth  version 7.1.7.2606

You can get the latest compatible versions from the official blog here.


Are you still having troubles? Feel free to let me know. I will help you download your images, contact me by email or phone: umaryusuf49@gmail.com or +2348039508010


Thanks for following

How to setup a Geospatial Programming Blog - Served with "Static Website Generators"

How to setup a Geo-spatial Programming portfolio Blog that scales better than the traditional blogs

Blogging is one of the most important things that any aspiring GIS programmer or Geo-data scientist should be doing on a regular basis. It can be a fantastic way to demonstrate once skills and learn topics in more depth.

There are various software for creating your Geo-Data Science blog. The software that helps you create and publish your blog is called a Content Management System (CMS), Some are free and some cost money.

One common thing with CMS is that, they heavily depend on server to deliver contents. That is a request has to be sent to a database and responses are sent in return each time a use perform an action on the blog. This can be time consuming and over killing for a static geo-data content blog.

As a Geospatial programmer, if you really want to setup a GIS scripting oriented blog that scales very well. Then look beyond server centric CMS blog engines such as Blogger, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal etc. Instead choose a "Static Website Generators" that gives room for increasing both speed and uptime, and managing static sites with version control systems like Git means the process of creating and updating sites is highly efficient.

Static site generators allow a user to create HTML files by writing in a markup language and coding template files. A static website generator combines a markup language, such as Markdown or reStructuredText, with a templating engine such as Jinja, to produce HTML files.

Open-Source Static Site Generators

There are several of them, a comprehensive list is available at: www.staticgen.com

Since this blog is about python Programming, I will list those static site generators written in Python programming language below. Later on, I will cover how to create a blog using Python, how to create posts using Jupyter notebook, and how to deploy the blog live using Github Pages.


List of Python powered static site generators

1. Pelican - www.blog.getpelican.com/
2. MkDocs - www.mkdocs.org/
3. Cactus - www.github.com/koenbok/Cactus/
4. Lektor - www.getlektor.com/
5. Hyde - www.hyde.github.io/
6. Nikola - www.getnikola.com
7. Sphinx - www.sphinx-doc.org/
8. Frozen-Flask - www.pythonhosted.org/Frozen-Flask/
9. Blogofile - www.blogofile.com
10. Acrylamid - www.posativ.org/acrylamid/
11. Tinkerer - www.tinkerer.me
12. Tags - www.tags.brace.io/
13. staticjinja - www.staticjinja.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
14. Urubu - www.urubu.jandecaluwe.com
15. Grow - www.grow.io/
16. Tarbell - www.tarbell.io
17. wok - www.wok.mythmon.com/
18. Statik - www.getstatik.com/
19. QPage - www.qpage.ir
20. drupan - www.github.com/fallenhitokiri/drupan
21. Prosopopee - www.github.com/Psycojoker/prosopopee
22. PyKwiki - www.pykwiki.nullism.com
23. PieCrust2 - www.bolt80.com/piecrust
24. Poole - www.bitbucket.org/obensonne/poole/
25. Pagegen - www.pagegen.phnd.net
26. django-distill - www.github.com/mgrp/django-distill
27. Halwa - www.github.com/mhlakhani/halwa
28. Blended - www.jmroper.com/blended/
29. Blo - www.github.com/savuir/blo
30. YASBE - www.github.com/underr/yasbe
31. Bang - www.github.com/squdle/Bang
32. Rocadocs - www.rocadocs.com
33. BootDown - www.project.geekweaver.com/

Creating a Geo-Data Science portfolio blog will improved your career more than anything else and land you your dream job while doing the work you love.


Thanks for following.