Аннотация

This textbook is an introduction to programming, computer application development, and thescienceofcomputing.Itismeanttobeusedinacollege-levelintroductoryprogramming course. More than just an introduction to programming, the book is a broad introduction to computer science concepts and to the tools used for modern computer application develop-ment.
The computer programming language used in the book is Python, a language that has a gentler learning curve than most. Python comes with powerful software libraries that make complex tasks—such as developing a graphics application or f i nding all the links in a web page—a breeze. In this textbook, we leverage the ease of learning Python and the ease of using its libraries to do more computer science and to add a focus on modern application development. The result is a textbook that is a broad introduction to the f i eld of computing and modern application development.
The textbook’s pedagogical approach is to introduce computing concepts and Python programminginabreadth-f i rstmanner.RatherthancoveringcomputingconceptsandPython structuresoneafteranother,thebook’sapproachismoreakintolearninganaturallanguage, starting from a small general-purpose vocabulary and then gradually extending it. The pre-sentation is in general problem oriented, and computing concepts, Python structures, algo-rithmic techniques, and other tools are introduced when needed, using a “right tool at the right moment” model.
The book uses the imperative-f i rst and procedural-f i rst paradigm but does not shy away from discussing objects early. User-def i ned classes and object-oriented programming are covered later, when they can be motivated and students are ready. The last three chapters of thetextbookandtheassociatedcasestudiesusethecontextofwebcrawling,searchengines, and data mining to introduce a broad array of topics. These include foundational concepts such as recursion, regular expressions, depth-f i rst search, data compression, and Google’s MapReduce framework, as well as practical tools such as GUI widgets, HTML parsers, SQL, JSON, I/O streams, and multicore programming.
This textbook can be used in a course that introduces computer science and program-ming to computer science majors. Its broad coverage of foundational computer science top-ics as well as current technologies will give the student a broad understanding of the f i eld and a conf i dence to develop “real” modern applications that interact with the web and/or a database. The textbook’s broad coverage also makes it ideal for students who need to master programmingandkeycomputingconceptsbutwillnottakemorethanoneortwocomputing courses.