I wish I could go back in time and give this book to my 10-year-old self when I first learned programming! It’s so much more engaging, practical, and accessible than the dry introductory programming books that I tried (and often failed) to comprehend as a kid. I love the authors’ hands-on approach of mixing explanations with code snippets that students can type into the Python prompt.

Practical Programming delivers just what it promises: a clear, readable, usable introduction to programming for beginners. This isn’t just a guide to hacking together programs. The book provides foundations to lifelong programming skills: a crisp, consistent, and visual model of memory and execution and a design recipe that will help readers produce quality software.

This excellent text reflects the authors’ many years of experience teaching Python to beginning students.  Topics are presented so that each leads naturally to the next, and common novice errors and misconceptions are explicitly addressed. The exercises at the end of each chapter invite interested students to explore computer science and programming language topics.