Explorations in computing : an introduction to computer science and Python programming /
John S. Conery.
- xv, 423 p :
- Chapman & Hall/CRC textbooks in computing .
Includes index.
"Preface This book is a revised and updated version of Explorations in Computing: An Introduction to Computer Science, an introductory textbook I wrote in 2011 (and also published by Chapman & Hall/CRC Press). Like the previous book, this one is for beginning students with no prior computer science or computer programming background. The first book was written primarily for "CS0" courses, where the goal is to introduce the key concepts and, as much as possible, give a broad overview of the field. The distinguishing feature of that text is the use of tutorial style projects that provide students an opportunity to experiment with topics without having to learn how to write programs. For example, in the chapter on simple searching and sorting algorithms, students learn what arrays are and how to create array objects they can use to test the algorithms, but all the projects are based on linear search and insertion sort functions that are part of a software package that accompanies the book. This new book has two major differences from the previous one. The first, most obvious, difference is the switch from Ruby to Python. Python has been widely adopted as the language of choice for first-year ("CS1") computer science courses. By revising the lab software to use Python the hope is that students and instructors will find it easier to make a seamless transition from the introductory projects in this book to the deeper studies in later courses. The second difference is that this new edition is also an introduction to Python programming. The primary emphasis is still on "computational thinking" and important concepts in computing, but along the way readers are presented with sufficient Python programming skills that they can implement their own programs to explore the ideas"--