Readings

Textbook

The textbook is Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Guttag, John. Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python: With Application to Understanding Data Second Edition. MIT Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780262529624. The book and the course lectures parallel each other, though there is more detail in the book about some topics. It is available both in hard copy and as an e-book.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 What is computation? Chapters 1 and 2.1
2 Branching and Iteration Chapters 2.2, 2.3.1, 2.4, and 3.2
3 String Manipulation, Guess and Check, Approximations, Bisection Chapters 3.1 and 3.3–3.5
4 Decomposition, Abstractions, Functions Chapters 4.1–4.2 and 4.4–4.6
5 Tuples, Lists, Aliasing, Mutability, Cloning Chapters 5.1–5.3.1 and 5.4–5.5
6 Recursion, Dictionaries Chapters 4.3 and 5.6
7 Testing, Debugging, Exceptions, Assertions Chapters 6 and 7
8 Object Oriented Programming Chapter 8.1
9 Python Classes and Inheritance Chapter 8.2
10 Understanding Program Efficiency, Part 1 Chapters 9.1–9.3.1, 9.3.3, and 9.3.5
11 Understanding Program Efficiency, Part 1 (Cont.) Chapters 9.3.2, 9.3.4, 9.3.6, and 9.3.7
12 Searching and Sorting algorithms Chapters 10.1–10.2