9 March 2021
This workshop introduces participants to the Google Sheets API and some tools and techniques to use it for data-focussed projects.
The Google Sheets API (Application Programming Interface) allows one to read from, write to, and otherwise interact with Google Sheets via Python and other languages. The workshop will introduce the API, provide some sample code and data to work with, and walk through a few use cases. The workshop does not presuppose an advanced understanding either of Python or APIs, but it does require some local setup of your environment in order to be able to participate fully. See the "Setup" section below.
Requirements:
- Python v3.4 or better (we recommend Anaconda, and instructions are geared toward that implementation)
- The ability to install packages via
pip - A Google Apps enabled account
- Ability to create a local folder, edit scripts in the folder using a text editor, and ability to run the script from a terminal command prompt (e.g., a bash shell on Mac OS or Linux, or the Anaconda powershell prompt on Windows).
Any plain text editor will do, but use of an IDE or code editor with syntax highlighting and formatting is highly recommended, e.g., VSCode, PyCharm, or Atom.
Download the files in this repo to a local folder. If you are able to use git, you can do so by using:
git clone [email protected]:dwhodges2/pugworkshop20210309.git
You can also download it as a Zip file from the repo page and un-zip it to a local directory.
Chances are good that you already have Python installed on your computer, but the version is important. We require Python 3.4 or later. An easy way to ensure you have the latest Python installed is to use Anaconda, which bundles Python with many useful packages and utilities.
You can skip this section if you already have Anaconda set up and working, or have another working Python3 environment available. You will need to be able to use conda the command prompt, and also be able to execute python scripts from the command line.
Find instructions for your platform here: https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/install/index.html
See Lesson 1 for more information on configuring Anaconda and Pip.