For many decades, some powerful trends have been in place. Computer hardware has rap
idly been getting faster, cheaper and smaller. Internet bandwidth (that is, its information
carrying capacity) has rapidly been getting larger and cheaper. And quality computer soft
ware has become ever more abundant and essentially free or nearly free through the “open
source” movement. Soon, the “Internet of Things” will connect tens of billions of devices
of every imaginable type. These will generate enormous volumes of data at rapidly increas
ing speeds and quantities.
Not so many years ago, if people had told us that we’d write a college-level introduc
tory programming textbook with words like “Big Data” and “Cloud” in the title and a
graphic of a multicolored elephant (emblematic of “big”) on the cover, our reaction might
have been, “Huh?” And, if they’d told us we’d include AI (for artificial intelligence) in the
title, we might have said, “Really? Isn’t that pretty advanced stuff for novice programmers?”
If people had said, we’d include “Data Science” in the title, we might have responded,
“Isn’t data already included in the domain of ‘Computer Science’? Why would we need a
separate academic discipline for it?” Well, in programming today, the latest innovations
are “all about the data”—data science, data analytics, big data, relational databases (SQL),
and NoSQL and NewSQL databases.
So, here we are! Welcome to Intro to Python for Computer Science and Data Science:
Learning to Program with AI, Big Data and the Cloud.
In this book, you’ll learn hands-on with today’s most compelling, leading-edge com
puting technologies—and, as you’ll see, with an easily tunable mix of computer science
and data science appropriate for introductory courses in those and related disciplines. And,
you’ll program in Python—one of the world’s most popular languages and the fastest
growing among them. In this Preface, we present the “soul of the book.”
Professional programmers often quickly discover that they like Python. They appre
ciate its expressive power, readability, conciseness and interactivity. They like the world of
open-source software development that’s generating an ever-growing base of reusable soft
ware for an enormous range of application areas.
Whether you’re an instructor, a novice student or an experienced professional pro
grammer, this book has much to offer you. Python is an excellent first programming lan
guage for novices and is equally appropriate for developing industrial-strength applications.
For the novice, the early chapters establish a solid programming foundation.
We hope you’ll find Intro to Python for Computer Science and Data Science educational,
entertaining and challenging. It has been a joy to work on this project.