Archive for the ‘Practical Programming’ Category
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
The field is becoming increasingly crowded: the second edition of Al Sweigart's Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python is now available. It's aimed at kids and teens, but doesn't condescend --- I'm looking forward to going through it.
Posted in Practical Programming, Python, Teaching | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
71 people have answered our questionnaire about Practical Programming. Here's some of what they told us; I'll summarize the questions about use of online programming resources and what we could do differently next time in a subsequent post.
Posted in Books, Practical Programming, Python, Teaching | 2 Comments »
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
We're putting together a (very) short survey for people who have bought Practical Programming (our intro to CS using Python). What do you think would be the most useful questions to ask readers? The three I've thought of so far are:
How much general programming experience did you have before you ...
Posted in Practical Programming | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
In response to a question about what it's been like switching to Python as a first-year programming language, Paul Gries wrote the following. It might be of interest to other instructors who are thinking of changing over.
And in related news, we're compiling errata and solutions to even-numbered exercises for ...
Posted in Practical Programming, Python, Teaching | 16 Comments »
Monday, June 1st, 2009
Nice to have our book reviewed by the creator of the language we're using :-) More reviews would be welcome (especially on Amazon.com) --- we'd really like to hear what current and potential readers/users think.
Posted in Practical Programming | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
There was a box waiting for me in the mailroom today. "Oh," I thought, "That was quick---Amazon usually takes at least a week." But it wasn't Amazon---no, it was my first five copies of Practical Programming, each in its own individual bubblewrap sleeve. W00t! And woo hoo! And don't you ...
Posted in Books, Practical Programming, Teaching | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
A couple of people have asked whether Practical Programming is suitable for high school students. The answer is yes, particularly if they're interested in science as well as programming. And of course, the Wing 101 IDE we recommend is free.
Posted in Practical Programming | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
If you're teaching a computer science course, and would like a review copy of Practical Programming, please send email to support@pragprog.com with:
Instructor name
Institution name
Course name
Course size
Number of times offered per year
Whether you'd like paper or ebook (save trees!)
Posted in Practical Programming | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Our new book, Practical Programming, is now available from Pragmatic (the publisher) and O'Reilly, as well as on Amazon.com --- yay! Topics include:
Basic programming from arithmetic to loops and conditionals
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 ...
Posted in Books, Practical Programming | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 26th, 2008
One of the things I teach my students is that the real purpose of a schedule is to tell you when to start cutting corners and dropping features. The ticker on my web site tells me I have 489 days left in my contract with the university; I signed up ...
Posted in Basie, DrProject, Practical Programming, Research, Software Carpentry, Teaching, Writing | 4 Comments »