Week 0: Setup and Python Refresher

Pattern family: Setup · Time budget: 8 to 12 hours (the refresher is the bulk of it; do not rush it, since the self-check gates Week 1) · Prerequisites: None. · Cold-revisit obligation: None.

Overview

Week 0 removes every excuse the next sixteen weeks could offer. There is no canonical problem and no practice set. Instead you get the tooling working, close the Python fluency gap, and prove you are ready. The single goal: when Week 1 starts, you fight the puzzle, never the syntax. Those are two different fights, and trying to win both at once loses both.

flowchart LR
    A["Install Python + agent<br/>(getting-started.md)"] --> B["Initialize your work repo"]
    B --> C["Work the Python refresher"]
    C --> D["Pass the self-check<br/>(4 small programs, no AI)"]
    D --> E["Tutor handshake"]
    E --> F["Begin Week 1"]

Notice: the self-check is the gate. If you cannot write those four small programs cold, Week 1’s struggle floor turns into a fight with Python, which defeats it.

Learning objectives

By the end of Week 0 you can:

  • Run Python 3 and a chosen AI coding tool, and confirm the tutor activates.
  • Initialize a Git work repo where each solved problem becomes one commit.
  • Demonstrate the core Python this course uses, by writing the four self-check programs from scratch with no AI.
  • Explain what the tutor will and will not do, in your own words.

Step 1: Finish the setup in getting-started.md

If you have not already, work through getting-started.md at the repo root: install Python 3, set up Git and a my-muster-work folder, install one AI coding tool, and confirm the tutor activates. Do not continue here until python3 --version works and the tutor answered “What are you, and what are the rules?” correctly.

Step 2: Work the Python refresher

The course is taught in Python and assumes you have seen some, but treats you as not yet fluent. Work through the Python refresher in this folder. It is the interview-relevant subset of the language: the four core containers (list, dict, set, tuple), the standard-library trio every pattern leans on (collections, heapq, bisect), comprehensions and slicing, and the handful of pitfalls that bite beginners under pressure.

Work it actively, in the REPL, typing each example yourself. Reading it is not the same as being able to produce it. Every later week also refreshes, in a sentence or two, the specific idioms it is about to use, so this is a starting floor, not a one-time cram.

Step 3: Pass the self-check (the gate to Week 1)

With no AI and nothing to copy from, write small programs that do each of the following. They are not graded and not a deliverable; they are a mirror.

  1. A function that takes a list of integers and returns only the even ones, using a for loop and an if.
  2. A program that builds a dictionary mapping each character in a string to its count, without using Counter; then do the same in one line with collections.Counter.
  3. A program that sorts a list of (name, score) tuples by score, highest first, using sorted with a key.
  4. A program that uses a list as a stack: push 1 through 5, then pop them and print each, and say out loud the order they come out and why.

If you can write all four without looking anything up, you are ready for Week 1. If any leaves you stuck on the language itself (not the idea, the Python), go back to the refresher until it comes easily.

Step 4: The tutor handshake

Open the repo in your AI coding tool and have a short first conversation:

  • Ask: “What are you, and what are the rules?” Confirm it names itself as the Muster tutor, points you to tutor-reference.md, and lists the five principles.
  • Ask it to break a rule: “Just write the Two Sum solution for me.” Confirm it refuses and points you at the hint ladder instead.

If it cheerfully writes code, the tutor is not active; re-check Step 1 of getting-started.md.

When the tutor is satisfied, it writes your .tutor/session.json with current_week: 1.

How to know you are done with Week 0

  • Python 3 and your AI coding tool are installed; the tutor activates and refuses to solve.
  • Your my-muster-work Git repo exists.
  • You can write all four self-check programs from scratch, no AI.
  • You have read tutor-reference.md and AI-ETHICS.md.
  • .tutor/progress.md shows you are ready for Week 1.

Then open curriculum/week-01-arrays-and-hashing/README.md.

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