Reviews
"Downey successfully presents the programming language Python. The author provides details of Python in a cogent fashion, enabling a novice in programming to cover the material with relative ease. Downey succeeds in fulfilling his four goals, stated in the preface." N. Chakrapani, reviews.com, "It is short and well written, it follows a very smooth progression, and its companion web Site is very good." O. Lecarme, reviews.com, "a book that is nearly free from technical bugs; explains concepts in clear, readable prose; contains helpful illustrations; and integrates activities to engage its readers." Max Hailperin, Computing in Science and Engineering, '… explains concepts in clear, readable prose; contains helpful illustrations; and integrates activities to engage its readers.' Computing in Science and Engineering, 'I liked this book. The presentation is neat and clean, I might even say cheerful. And I learned a lot, not least of all where higher level languages are going, and the terminology used to express that. ... I liked the pace of presentation. I liked the constant stirring of topics: a new feature, a hint on debugging, a few words on programming style, some thoughts on programming principles, then on to the next new feature. It really is a nice mix. If one is writing a textbook on scientific programming (rather than computer science as this one is), one could well learn some style tips here.' Scientific Programming, "... the book offers plenty of examples, very helpful explanations, and useful illustrations." F.H. Wild III, Choice Magazine, I very much like Python for Software Design. I hope that instructors in computational science will learn some pedagogical lessons from it. Repeatedly, the book showed code that was simply readable. The feature, its rationale, its uses, and debugging hints are together for collective reference (like an object?). And ideas are repeated as they naturally reappear. Is that how computer scientists think? I don't know. But if that's how they teach, they're doing a fine job. When trying to teach the more difficult ideas of floating point errors, control of step size, mesh refinement, and parallel programming, computational scientists could learn something from Python for Software Design. Dan Nagle, Scientific Programming|9780521725965|, '... explains concepts in clear, readable prose; contains helpful illustrations; and integrates activities to engage its readers.' Computing in Science and Engineering, 'I liked this book. The presentation is neat and clean, I might even say cheerful. And I learned a lot, not least of all where higher level languages are going, and the terminology used to express that … I liked the pace of presentation. I liked the constant stirring of topics: a new feature, a hint on debugging, a few words on programming style, some thoughts on programming principles, then on to the next new feature. It really is a nice mix.' Scientific Programming, 'I liked this book. The presentation is neat and clean, I might even say cheerful. And I learned a lot, not least of all where higher level languages are going, and the terminology used to express that. … I liked the pace of presentation. I liked the constant stirring of topics: a new feature, a hint on debugging, a few words on programming style, some thoughts on programming principles, then on to the next new feature. It really is a nice mix.' Scientific Programming
