ICS 31 • David G. Kay • UC Irvine

Supplementary References

Each of these references supplements the course material in some way. They're not required unless we say otherwise. If you'd like to suggest additions to this page, please feel free.

• Python textbooks:
  • Introduction to Computing Using Python: An Application Development Focus, by Ljubomir Perkovic (Wiley). The author has supplied some errata (corrections).
  • Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, Python 3.2 version, by Allen B. Downey (Cambridge)
  • A reference for the Tkinter GUI programming library is available at python.org.
  • There's a large selection of Python learning materials on the python.org site; an overview page has links to pages for relative novices and for the more experienced. If you use any of these materials, let us know how they worked for you.

• Running Python on the web::
  • www.pythontutor.com lets you run Python code on the web and provides a clear visualization of what happens as it runs. It's still under development and doesn't include 100% of Python features.
  • codingbat.com/python provides dozens of simple practice programming problems, categorized by type. Enter your solution and it will test it for you.

• Python interpreter software can be downloaded (use version 3.3; version 3.2 is okay, but don't use version 2). There are also IDEs to automate some tasks:
  
  • IDLE is the simple Python IDE that comes with the software installation. It will be our default tool.
  • Eclipse: This is a popular open-source professional development environment, particularly in the Java community. Its PyDev package configures it for Python. Eclipse does a lot; it's very complex; it's highly configurable.
    
  • PyCharm and Wing are commerial alternatives.

• Shorter documents about various aspects of our course
  
  • Pair Programming Illuminated, by Laurie Williams and Robert Kessler. This book describes the practices and advantages of pair programming.
    
• Broader topics in computing:
• Caring for Your Wrists, by TidBITS Publishing. A two-page poster with good advice on avoiding repetitive stress injuries.
  
• Typographic Design for Computerized Text, by David G. Kay. Two pages on the basic principles of typographic readability.
• The Informatics faculty has compiled a far-ranging list of books
• Fluency with Information Technology, fifth edition, by Lawrence Snyder. This text covers some of the non-programming aspets of computing.
  

• The Tao of Computing, by Henry Walker. Similar in theme to the previous book, this one is both briefer and deeper.
• Tables of decimal, binary, hexadecimal, and ASCII values: a simple ASCII table with 8-bit codes, decimal, octal, and hexadecimal; all 255 ASCII characters, categorized; a compact ASCII table. The Unicode standard handles most of the world's writing systems; check out Ethiopic (from Africa), Devangari (from India), Chinese (from Asia), Cherokee (from North America), Armenian (from Europe), or Linear B (from ancient Greece).