Target audience

Students who want to learn programming on their own. The book was written so you can gradually learn to program. The first chapters explain the basic programming concepts in a logical order, with practical exercises. All you need to know is how to use a computer and a browser (Firefox, Edge, Safari, or Google Chrome). The book starts by showing how to download and install Python on Windows, but also covers Linux (Ubuntu) and macOS. Special attention was given to conditional structures (if), loops (while), and functions (including recursion). The book also covers string manipulation (text processing), so you learn to work with variables containing text and prepare to write more complete programs. At the end, we cover files, creating simple web pages, a light introduction to object-oriented programming, regular expressions, and graphical interfaces.

You might wonder if this book is what you're looking for. Here are some tips to help you choose:

• You want to learn how to program computers
• You study programming logic in school or college and need a study aid to learn on your own
• You are a student of Introduction to Computer Science (ICC)
• You want to learn Python to use in other programs
• You want to learn at your own pace
• You have been using computers for a while and want to learn how to program them

Upon finishing the book, you should be ready to write programs that:

• Read data from the keyboard
• Use lists
• Manipulate directories and files
• Calculate averages and sums
• Define their own functions, including recursive functions, lambdas and passing functions as parameters
• Read and write files, including simple home pages
• Use simple classes and objects
• Manipulate text (strings), being able to find a word or letter.
• Use databases and SQL
• Regular Expressions (REGEX)
• Use the command line, receive parameters and create files in JSON format
• Graphical interfaces (GUI) with tkinter

What this book doesn't teach, but prepares you to learn:

• Django or web frameworks