Introduction to Programming Concepts with Case Studies in Python

The current text provides a clear introduction to Computer Science concepts in a programming  environment. It is designed as suitable use in freshman- or introductory level coursework in CS and provides the fundamental concepts as well as abstract  theorems for solving computational problems. The Python language serves as a medium for illustrating and demonstrating the concepts.

The World of Programming.- Programming Languages.- Programming Paradigms.- The Zoo of Programming Languages.- How Programming Languages are Implemented.- How a Program gets “written”.- Meet Python.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Data: The First Ingredient of a Program.- What is Data?.- What is Structured Data?.- Basic Data Types.- Basic Organization of Data: Containers.- Accessing Data or Containers by Names : Variables.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Actions: the 2nd Ingredient of a Program.- Purpose and Scope of Actions.- Action Types.- Controlling Actions: Conditionals.- Reusable Actions: Functions.- Functional Programming Tools in Python.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Managing the Size of a Problem.- An Action Wizard: Recursion.- Iteration.- Recursion versus Iteration.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Complexity.- Time and Memory Complexity.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Organizing Data.- Primitive and Composite Data Types.- Abstract Data Types.- Abstract Data Types in Python.- Further Reading.- Exercises.- Objects: Reunion of Data and Action.- The Idea behind the Object-Oriented Paradigm (OOP).- Properties of Object-Oriented Programming.- Object-Oriented Programming in Python.- Further Reading.