1.1. This Book is for Students¶
This chapter introduces the approach used in this book and offers some quick “teasers” of things we’ll be doing later. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the code (programs - instructions that a computer can understand) that you see in this chapter. We’ll go through things much more slowly in the next few chapters. This book is intended for students who haven’t programmed before. If you are a teacher then send email to cslearn4u@gmail.com to get access to the teacher edition of this book which contains several features just for teachers.
Please fill out the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/studentCSP-pre. It will help us with our research. You might want to open that link in another tab to make it easier for you to get back to the ebook.
This electronic book is different because it uses examples plus practice. Most computer science books are about becoming professional software developers (people who write programs for a living). Most computer science courses require you to write lots of code. This book helps students learn how programming without making you write lots of code. It will use the programming language Python which is used by companies like Google and Pixar.
Figure 1: Students in a computer classroom¶
Rather than have you write lots of code, we will ask you to read a lot of code examples.
We ask you to use what you are learning from the examples in some simple practice exercises. These exercises are meant to be short and easy.
You don’t have to install anything. You will read, edit, and run programs all from within the pages of this ebook inside the browser.
Click the arrow at the bottom right side of this window to go on to the next section in this chapter. Click on the name of the book at the top left of the page to go to the table of contents.
1.1.1. License¶
Mark Guzdial and Barbara Ericson ericson@cc.gatech.edu January, 2014
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the <organization> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Mark Guzdial and Barbara Ericson BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.