How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Interactive Edition (opens in new tab)

[0] https://runestoneserverascholer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ind...

I can understand the reluctance about computer science; but what about the table of contents made you think scientists?

This interactive book is a product of the Runestone Interactive Project at Luther College, led by Brad Miller and David Ranum. There have been many contributors to the project"

Also, I don't think he's the author of this, his name is not in the list of authors. This seems to be a mirror, perhaps with some customization for his class. Probably from his time teaching the intro to Python course (also on his CV) at UCSC.

I didn't have any interest at all in programming or computers until my mid-30s, when a colleague in grad school showed me some Python tricks that completely replaced a set of absolutely hideous Excel spreadsheets. My interest was sparked, but I struggled - there was some kind of mental barrier I just couldn't hop over in order to make sense of programming language syntax. This book got me over that hump and sent me on my way. Several years later, I've switched careers and work with Python professionally, and in my spare/hobby time I work on a variety of C, Rust, and Zig projects.

What I liked: there is no barrier to entry. For a person with only the most basic/cursory understanding of, and no real interest in, computers, this was huge: no need to install, get an editor set up, no need to understand anything about the shell, PATH issues, or how to run a script or work with environments or anything like that. All of that came later. I liked the CodeLens diagrams a lot, the visualization was critical to that 'aha!' moment. I think the book is well organized; the flow from chapter to chapter, concept to concept, made a lot of sense to me. Overall, the book gave me a sense of 'making progress', challenging me while keeping things light and fun and interesting.

I don't have any complaints. This book got me to the point where I was just skilled enough to automate basic and useful things, and interested enough to start diving in properly and learn how computers really work. Since completing it, I've been learning pretty much nonstop.

I have read the book in at least two programming languages.

I'm a huge fan of Downey for lowering the entry bar to solid logic and reason around computer science, particularly when introducing Python to novice learners outside traditional collegiate computer science programs.

For this reason, I've recommended the book to friends who teach or have kids.

What's great about Downey is that he brings together concise and clear writing with unimpeachable correctness, a quality that was missing from my computer science education, where the curriculum was set in stone and was decades old and written by someone without Downey's gifts.

The fact that this jupyter stack runs on a five year old android phone without issue is a bonus!