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Introduction to Programming Using Python
Introduction to Programming Using Python is intended for use in the introduction to programming course.
Daniel Liang is known for his “fundamentals-first” approach to teaching programming concepts and techniques. “Fundamentals-first” means that students learn fundamental programming concepts like selection statements, loops, and functions, before moving into defining classes. Students learn basic logic and programming concepts before moving into object-oriented programming, and GUI programming.
Another aspect of Introduction to Programming Using Python is that in addition to the typical programming examples that feature games and some math, Liang gives an example or two early in the chapter that uses a simple graphic to engage the students. Rather than asking them to average 10 numbers together, they learn the concepts in the context of a fun example that generates something visually interesting.
Using the graphics examples is optional in this textbook. Turtle graphics can be used in Chapters 1-5 to introduce the fundamentals of programming and Tkinter can be used for developing comprehensive graphical user interfaces and for learning object-oriented programming.
557 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 11, 2020
Good to get started with Python. The language used is simple and easy to understand and the book is structured well enough.
But not so detailed!
But not so detailed!
January 23, 2020
This is a college-level textbook, suitable for beginners to programming. As such it does a reasonably good job, in clear language. There are many examples and exercises. This is the second edition, and deals entirely with Python 3. The usual resources for instructors are available from the publisher's website.
Contents
01) Introduction to Computers, Programs and Python
02) Elementary Programming
03) Mathematical Functions, Strings, and Objects
04) Selections
05) Loops
06) Functions
07) Objects and Classes
08) More on Strings and Special Methods
09) GUI Programming Using Tkinter
10) Lists
11) Multidimensional Lists
12) Inheritance and Polymorphism
13) Files and Exception Handling
14) Tuples, Sets and Dictionaries
15) Recursion
16) Developing Efficient Algorithms
17) Sorting
18) Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, and Priority Queues
19) Binary Search Trees
20) AVL Trees
21) Hashing: Implementing Dictionaries and Sets
22) Graphs and Applications
23) Weighted Graphs and Applications
A) Python Keywords
B) The ASCII Character Set
C) Number Systems
Chapters 16 through 23 are not contained in the book, but are online.
Additional supplements
The following supplements are (it says here) available from the Companion Website:
General Supplements
A. Glossary
B. Installing and Using Python
C. Python IDLE
D. Python on Eclipse
E. Python on Eclipse Debugging
F. Python Coding Style Guidelines
Advanced Python Topics
A. Regular expressions
B. Obtaining Date and time
C. The str Class's format method
D. Pass Arguments from the Command Line
E. Database Programming.
The publisher's site also contains a substantial list of errata.
Omissions
Comparison with a comparable textbook, Murach's Python Programming, reveals not a few lacunæ in the present opus, some fairly startling; for example (the page-numbers refer to Murach):
010 Bytecode
028 Shebang line
050 Sep
078 Pseudocode
085 How to escape from an infinite loop
106 Calling main()
116 Docstrings
118 Namespaces
155 The IDLE debugger
180 Deepcopy
183 Key parameter for sort
195 With
210 CSV files
211 newline parameter
234 sys.exit
256 Locale
270 Multiline strings
276 Replace
282 Join
At minimum, these are not in the index of Liang.
SUMMARY
So, a fairly well done introduction to Python; but I have seen several reviews (e.g. by David Muller on Amazon US) to the effect to the effect that this book has been written by a Java programmer, and frequently contains bad Python code and incorrect terminology. Having worked through both, and taking into account the pricing at the time of writing: if I had a choice, I'd take Murach.
Contents
01) Introduction to Computers, Programs and Python
02) Elementary Programming
03) Mathematical Functions, Strings, and Objects
04) Selections
05) Loops
06) Functions
07) Objects and Classes
08) More on Strings and Special Methods
09) GUI Programming Using Tkinter
10) Lists
11) Multidimensional Lists
12) Inheritance and Polymorphism
13) Files and Exception Handling
14) Tuples, Sets and Dictionaries
15) Recursion
16) Developing Efficient Algorithms
17) Sorting
18) Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, and Priority Queues
19) Binary Search Trees
20) AVL Trees
21) Hashing: Implementing Dictionaries and Sets
22) Graphs and Applications
23) Weighted Graphs and Applications
A) Python Keywords
B) The ASCII Character Set
C) Number Systems
Chapters 16 through 23 are not contained in the book, but are online.
Additional supplements
The following supplements are (it says here) available from the Companion Website:
General Supplements
A. Glossary
B. Installing and Using Python
C. Python IDLE
D. Python on Eclipse
E. Python on Eclipse Debugging
F. Python Coding Style Guidelines
Advanced Python Topics
A. Regular expressions
B. Obtaining Date and time
C. The str Class's format method
D. Pass Arguments from the Command Line
E. Database Programming.
The publisher's site also contains a substantial list of errata.
Omissions
Comparison with a comparable textbook, Murach's Python Programming, reveals not a few lacunæ in the present opus, some fairly startling; for example (the page-numbers refer to Murach):
010 Bytecode
028 Shebang line
050 Sep
078 Pseudocode
085 How to escape from an infinite loop
106 Calling main()
116 Docstrings
118 Namespaces
155 The IDLE debugger
180 Deepcopy
183 Key parameter for sort
195 With
210 CSV files
211 newline parameter
234 sys.exit
256 Locale
270 Multiline strings
276 Replace
282 Join
At minimum, these are not in the index of Liang.
SUMMARY
So, a fairly well done introduction to Python; but I have seen several reviews (e.g. by David Muller on Amazon US) to the effect to the effect that this book has been written by a Java programmer, and frequently contains bad Python code and incorrect terminology. Having worked through both, and taking into account the pricing at the time of writing: if I had a choice, I'd take Murach.
May 19, 2024
Good introduction to Python and has a lot of exercises which is nice for practice, but it's quite too long at times.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews