9781934356272

Computers are used in every part of science from ecology to particle physics. This introduction to computer science continually reinforces those ties by using real-world science problems as examples. Anyone who has taken a high school science class will be able to follow along as the book introduces the basics of programming, then goes on to show readers how to work with databases, download data from the web automatically, build graphical interfaces, and most importantly, how to think like a professional programmer. Topics covered include: Basic elements of programming from arithmetic to loops and if statements. Using functions and modules to organize programs. Using lists, sets, and dictionaries to organize data. Designing algorithms systematically. Debugging things when they go wrong. Creating and querying databases. Building graphical interfaces to make programs easier to use. Object-oriented programming and programming patterns.

Jennifer Campbell is a senior lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Toronto who created the course on which this book is based. Paul Gries, also a senior lecturer, has won numerous teaching awards and authored other introductory computer science texts. Jason Montojo was a student of theirs who has since worked on the Eclipse programming platform at IBM; he is also a professional photographer and digital artist, and created all of the diagrams for this book. Greg Wilson worked in industry, for many years before returning to academia; he has been using Python for over a decade, and has written several other programming books.

Introduction	p. 1
Programs and Programming	p. 3
A Few Definitions	p. 4
What to Install	p. 4
For Instructors	p. 5
Summary	p. 6
Hello, Python	p. 7
The Big Picture	p. 7
Expressions	p. 9
What Is a Type?	p. 12
Variables and the Assignment Statement	p. 15
When Things Go Wrong	p. 19
Function Basics	p. 20
Built-in Functions	p. 23
Style Notes	p. 24
Summary	p. 25
Exercises	p. 26
Strings	p. 29
Strings	p. 29
Escape Characters	p. 32
Multiline Strings	p. 33
Print	p. 34
Formatted Printing	p. 35
User Input	p. 36
Summary	p. 37
Exercises	p. 38
Modules	p. 41
Importing Modules	p. 41
Defining Your Own Modules	p. 45
Objects and Methods	p. 51
Pixels and Colors	p. 59
Testing	p. 61
Style Notes	p. 67
Summary	p. 68
Exercises	p. 69
Lists	p. 73
Lists and Indices	p. 73
Modifying Lists	p. 77
Built-in Functions on Lists	p. 79
Processing List Items	p. 81
Slicing	p. 84
Aliasing	p. 86
List Methods	p. 87
Nested Lists	p. 89
Other Kinds of Sequences	p. 91
Files as Lists	p. 92
Comments	p. 95
Summary	p. 97
Exercises	p. 97
Making Choices	p. 101
Boolean Logic	p. 101
if Statements	p. 111
Storing Conditionals	p. 118
Summary	p. 119
Exercises	p. 120
Repetition	p. 125
Counted Loops	p. 125
while Loops	p. 134
User Input Loops	p. 142
Controlling Loops	p. 143
Style Notes	p. 147
Summary	p. 148
Exercises	p. 149
File Processing	p. 153
One Record per Line	p. 154
Records with Multiple Fields	p. 164
Positional Data	p. 167
Multiline Records	p. 170
Looking Ahead	p. 172
Writing to Files	p. 174
Summary	p. 176
Exercises	p. 176
Sets and Dictionaries	p. 179
Sets	p. 179
Dictionaries	p. 184
Inverting a Dictionary	p. 191
Summary	p. 192
Exercises	p. 193
Algorithms	p. 197
Searching	p. 198
Timing	p. 205
Summary	p. 205
Exercises	p. 206
Searching and Sorting	p. 209
Linear Search	p. 209
Binary Search	p. 213
Sorting	p. 217
More Efficient Sorting Algorithms	p. 223
Mergesort: An Nlog2N Algorithm	p. 224
Summary	p. 228
Exercises	p. 229
Construction	p. 233
More on Functions	p. 233
Exceptions	p. 238
Testing	p. 245
Debugging	p. 250
Patterns	p. 252
Summary	p. 256
Exercises	p. 257
Object-Oriented Programming	p. 267
Class Color	p. 268
Special Methods	p. 273
More About dir and help	p. 275
A Little Bit of OO Theory	p. 277
A Longer Example	p. 285
Summary	p. 290
Exercises	p. 290
Graphical User Interfaces	p. 291
The Tkinter Module	p. 292
Basic GUI Construction	p. 293
Models, Views, and Controllers	p. 298
Style	p. 304
A Few More Widgets	p. 309
Object-Oriented GUIs	p. 313
Summary	p. 314
Exercises	p. 315
Databases	p. 319
The Big Picture	p. 319
First Steps	p. 321
Retrieving Data	p. 325
Updating and Deleting	p. 328
Transactions	p. 329
Using NULL for Missing Data	p. 331
Using Joins to Combine Tables	p. 332
Keys and Constraints	p. 337
Advanced Features	p. 339
Summary	p. 344
Exercises	p. 345
A Bibliography	p. 349
Index	p. 351
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Practical Programming : An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python

Practical Programming : An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python

1934356271

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