Introduction to Computing

Topics

• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) slides
• Basics of UNIX-like systems slides
  An example text file
• Algorithms and Pseudocode slides
• Variables, operators, statements slides   taps-and-drains.py  
• Statements and flow control slides
• Lists, dictionaries, strings slides

Exercises, exams, etc.

Exercises for Tutorial 1
Exercises for Tutorial 2

Recommended books

You will need to be a little careful about what edition you use, since Python is an evolving language. All the following books are based on reasonably recent versions of Python, but please use the edition mentioned below, or a more recent one, if available.

If you are new to programming (in any language)

• An Introduction to Programming and Computer Science with Python (2nd edition) by Clayton Cafiero, 2025 (PDF version freely available).
• Introduction to Computer Programming with Python by Harris Wang, Open Textbook Library, 2023-2025 (EPUB, PDF and online versions freely available).
• Introduction to Python Programming, OpenStax, Rice University, 2026 (PDF and online versions freely available).

If you have some programming experience (in any language)

• Python in a Nutshell (4th edition) by Alex Martelli, and others, O'Reilly, 2023 (Python 3.7 through 3.11).
• Fluent Python (2nd edition) by Luciano Ramalho, O'Reilly, 2022 (Python 3.10).
• The Quick Python Book (4th edition) by Naomi Ceder, Manning Publications, 2025 (Python 3.9).
• Python Distilled by David M. Beazley, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2021-2022 (Python 3.8).

Online resources

• The official Python tutorial
• Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python (MIT OpenCourseWare)
• Introduction to programming with Python, an online interactive course
• 2-page cheatsheet by Laurent Pointal
• Online material for the book "Python Crash Course" (3rd ed.) (the zip file contains more detailed cheatsheets for individual sub-topics, e.g., lists, dictionaries.

Last modified: Thu Sep 10 12:39:53 IST 2026