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Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python

Posted by tripwire45 on · 13 comments
A Million Chimpanzees; By James Pyles 		Mail this story
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According to wordnetweb.princeton.edu, Computer Science is "the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures". It's the study of computer architectures, languages, and mathematical structures as applied to the process of computing. So what have Campbell, et al produced in this book...a Computer Science textbook that teaches Python? Kind of. Imagine you wanted to learn how the computer is used in the various scientific disciples. Further, you wanted to learn how computer programs and programming is used in this context to construct tools, perform investigations, and to solve problems. You also want to use a single programming language as your example. Welcome to "Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python". Not a book about learning Python as such, but an introduction to the discipline of Computer Science with Python as your guide.

Yes, it is a text book. Page 5 in the Introduction has a For Instructors section which should be a clue. Code samples and installation instructions for the class are available for download at the book's website. New as this book is, there's already entries in the Errata section, and as with other Pragmatic books, there's a discussion forum available for questions and comments, which will come in handy for teacher and student alike.



This really is a book that starts at the beginning, even to the point of describing a prompt in a python shell on page 9. Sections in Chapter 2 include Expressions and What is a Type, so the reader isn't presumed to know Python or programming at all. Like any other textbook of worth, there are exercises at the end of each chapter. Also like many textbooks, the information is presented in a rather "dry" manner, so don't expect to be entertained. Please keep in mind that this is a textbook and the target audience is a beginning Computer Science class. Class instructors are the most likely subset of the audience to be commenting about the book at this point, since they are using the book to educate their students in the fundamentals of Computer Science (which leaves me out since I'm not an instructor, but I'll do the review anyway).

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Comments (13)

jacog ·
I have always liked the term "Computer Science". It IS science. And science by nature should not be owned or controlled by corporations. It's for everyone.

There was a great moment in the 1997 film adaptation of The Saint, with Val Kilmer/Elizabeth Shue. Simon Templar (Kilmer) goes through great lengths to steal Dr Emma Russel's (Shue) research notes. She eventually figures out what he's doing she tells him that if he wanted them, he should have just asked for it, since she believes that science is meant to be shared.

Open source advocacy in movies ftw. :P
gus3 ·
"This is Unix! I KNOW this!" lulz
tracyanne ·
"This is insane, it's completely Linux based, open source programming...." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD9b38_KUCU
tracyanne ·
Ubuntu Forums http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=619813 Linux mentioned on mainstream TV during prime-time
softwarejanitor ·
@jacog Well, except that software development isn't really a science, it is an art... and a black one at that... >:-{)
herzeleid ·
Quoting:"This is Unix! I KNOW this!" lulz
Entirely plausible. When I was working at UC, I brought my daughters to work all the time, and they learned unix. They loved the SGI boxes and the cool demos, but they also learned some useful skills for their futures, Both of my daughters work with computers now. In fact one of them leads the web dev team at ticketmaster.
tripwire45 Story submitter ·
Glad to see one of my reviews stimulating a conversation.
hkwint ·
Sad thing I never saw SGI-boxes (too young I guess). Which museum can I find those?
Bob_Robertson ·
I saw the thread title, and heard Tom Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" playing in the back of my mind.

It's been my thought that computer programming is a lot like mathematics. Each little bit might be perfectly scientific and generic, but putting it all together is an art form.

I'm good at math, but real programmers are a complete mystery.
tracyanne ·
Quoting:but real programmers are a complete mystery.


I've been told I'm a real mystery, so I suppose I must be a real programmer.
jdixon ·
> I've been told I'm a real mystery, so I suppose I must be a real programmer.

No, no. If real programmers are a complete mystery, and you're a real mystery, then you must be a complete programmer.
rijelkentaurus ·
This sounds rather like a book for me...I can't program my way out of a wet paper bag, a few simple shell scripts and batch files aside, and I've always found "instructional" books too much on the "fun" and "witty" side...I just want them to get to the meat of the matter at hand, and they often get lost in the minutia of the crap they are spewing. Somehow the thought of getting my hands on an actual textbook never occurred to me, probably a good idea to try it.

BTW...Firefox 3.5 apparently has a feature where, if you highly a word and right-click, gives you potential proper spellings if it's misspelled. Very cool...however, "Firefox" is not in their dictionary! :^)
softwarejanitor ·
> Sad thing I never saw SGI-boxes (too young I guess). Which museum can I find those?

Uh... eBay?

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