How to Think Like a Computer Scientist

Learning with Python: Interactive Edition (Using Python 3.x)

by Brad Miller and David Ranum

Luther College

Please send us your feedback at our Google Group.

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Based on the original book

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist

by Jeffrey Elkner, Peter Wentworth, Allen B. Downey, Chris Meyers

illustrated by Dario Mitchell

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Table of Contents

• Copyright Notice
• Preface to the Interactive Edition
• Whats the deal with Logging in?
• How to Contribute
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Preface to the Third Edition
• The Rhodes Local Edition (RLE)
• Preface to the First and Second Editions
• Contributor List

• 1. The Way of the Program
  • 1.1. Algorithms
  • 1.2. The Python Programming Language
  • 1.3. Special Ways to Execute Python in this Book
  • 1.4. More About Programs
  • 1.5. What is Debugging?
  • 1.6. Syntax errors
  • 1.7. Runtime Errors
  • 1.8. Semantic Errors
  • 1.9. Experimental Debugging
  • 1.10. Formal and Natural Languages
  • 1.11. A Typical First Program
  • 1.12. Comments
  • 1.13. Glossary
• 2. Variables, Expressions and Statements
  • 2.1. Values and Data Types
  • 2.2. Type conversion functions
  • 2.3. Variables
  • 2.4. Variable Names and Keywords
  • 2.5. Statements and Expressions
  • 2.6. Operators and Operands
  • 2.7. Input
  • 2.8. Order of Operations
  • 2.9. Reassignment
  • 2.10. Updating Variables
  • 2.11. Glossary
  • 2.12. Exercises
• 3. Hello, Little Turtles!
  • 3.1. Our First Turtle Program
  • 3.2. Instances — A Herd of Turtles
  • 3.3. The for Loop
  • 3.4. Flow of Execution of the for Loop
  • 3.5. Iteration Simplifies our Turtle Program
  • 3.6. The range Function
  • 3.7. A Few More turtle Methods and Observations
  • 3.8. Summary of Turtle Methods
  • 3.9. Glossary
  • 3.10. Exercises
• 4. Modules and Getting Help
  • 4.1. Modules
  • 4.2. More About Using Modules
  • 4.3. The math module
  • 4.4. The random module
  • 4.5. Glossary
  • 4.6. Exercises
• 5. Functions
  • 5.1. Functions
  • 5.2. Functions that return values
  • 5.3. Variables and parameters are local
  • 5.4. The Accumulator Pattern
  • 5.5. Functions can call other functions
  • 5.6. Flow of execution summary
  • 5.7. A Turtle Bar Chart
  • 5.8. Glossary
  • 5.9. Exercises
• 6. Decisions and Selection
  • 6.1. Boolean Values and Boolean Expressions
  • 6.2. Logical operators
  • 6.3. Precedence of Operators
  • 6.4. Conditional Execution: Binary Selection
  • 6.5. Omitting the else Clause: Unary Selection
  • 6.6. Nested conditionals
  • 6.7. Chained conditionals
  • 6.8. Boolean Functions
  • 6.9. Glossary
  • 6.10. Exercises
• 7. Iteration Revisited
  • 7.1. The for loop revisited
  • 7.2. The while Statement
  • 7.3. Randomly Walking Turtles
  • 7.4. The 3n + 1 Sequence
  • 7.5. Newton’s Method
  • 7.6. Algorithms Revisited
  • 7.7. Simple Tables
  • 7.8. 2-Dimensional Iteration: Image Processing
    • 7.8.1. The RGB Color Model
    • 7.8.2. Image Objects
    • 7.8.3. Image Processing and Nested Iteration
  • 7.9. Glossary
  • 7.10. Exercises
• 8. Strings
  • 8.1. Strings Revisited
  • 8.2. A Collection Data Type
  • 8.3. Operations on Strings
  • 8.4. Index Operator: Working with the Characters of a String
  • 8.5. String Methods
  • 8.6. Length
  • 8.7. The Slice Operator
  • 8.8. String Comparison
  • 8.9. Strings are Immutable
  • 8.10. Traversal and the for Loop: By Item
  • 8.11. Traversal and the for Loop: By Index
  • 8.12. Traversal and the while Loop
  • 8.13. The in and not in operators
  • 8.14. The Accumulator Pattern with Strings
  • 8.15. Turtles and Strings and L-Systems
  • 8.16. Looping and counting
  • 8.17. A find function
  • 8.18. Optional parameters
  • 8.19. Character classification
  • 8.20. Summary
  • 8.21. Glossary
  • 8.22. Exercises
• 9. Lists
  • 9.1. List Values
  • 9.2. List Length
  • 9.3. Accessing Elements
  • 9.4. List Membership
  • 9.5. Concatenation and Repetition
  • 9.6. List Slices
  • 9.7. Lists are Mutable
  • 9.8. List Deletion
  • 9.9. Objects and References
  • 9.10. Aliasing
  • 9.11. Cloning Lists
  • 9.12. Repetition and References
  • 9.13. List Methods
  • 9.14. The Return of L-Systems
  • 9.15. Append versus Concatenate
  • 9.16. Lists and for loops
  • 9.17. Using Lists as Parameters
  • 9.18. Pure Functions
  • 9.19. Which is Better?
  • 9.20. Functions that Produce Lists
  • 9.21. List Comprehensions
  • 9.22. Nested Lists
  • 9.23. Strings and Lists
  • 9.24. list Type Conversion Function
  • 9.25. Tuples and Mutability
  • 9.26. Tuple Assignment
  • 9.27. Tuples as Return Values
  • 9.28. Glossary
  • 9.29. Exercises
• 10. Working with Data Files
  • 10.1. Finding a File on your Disk
  • 10.2. Reading a File
    • 10.2.1. Iterating over lines in a file
    • 10.2.2. Alternative File Reading Methods
    • 10.2.3. Glossary
    • 10.2.4. Exercises
• 11. Dictionaries
  • 11.1. Dictionary operations
  • 11.2. Dictionary methods
  • 11.3. Aliasing and copying
  • 11.4. Sparse matrices
  • 11.5. Glossary
  • 11.6. Exercises
• 12. Recursion
  • 12.1. Drawing Fractals
  • 12.2. Recursive Data
  • 12.3. Glossary
  • 12.4. Exercises
• 13. Classes and Objects - the Basics
  • 13.1. Object-oriented programming
  • 13.2. A change of perspective
  • 13.3. Objects Revisited
  • 13.4. User Defined Classes
  • 13.5. Improving our Constructor
  • 13.6. Adding Other Methods to our Class
  • 13.7. Objects as Arguments and Parameters
  • 13.8. Converting an Object to a String
  • 13.9. Instances as Return Values
  • 13.10. Glossary
  • 13.11. Exercises
• 14. Classes and Objects - Digging a little deeper
  • 14.1. Fractions
  • 14.2. Objects are Mutable
  • 14.3. Sameness
  • 14.4. Arithmetic Methods
  • 14.5. Glossary
  • 14.6. Exercises

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