Discovering Computer Science: Interdisciplinary Problems, Principles, and Python Programming introduces computational problem solving as a vehicle of discovery in a wide variety of disciplines. With a principles-oriented introduction to computational thinking, the text provides a broader and deeper introduction to computer science than typical introductory programming books.
Organized around interdisciplinary problem domains, rather than programming language features, each chapter guides students through increasingly sophisticated algorithmic and programming techniques. The author uses a spiral approach to introduce Python language features in increasingly complex contexts as the book progresses.
The text places programming in the context of fundamental computer science principles, such as abstraction, efficiency, and algorithmic techniques, and offers overviews of fundamental topics that are traditionally put off until later courses.
The book includes thirty well-developed independent projects that encourage students to explore questions across disciplinary boundaries. Each is motivated by a problem that students can investigate by developing algorithms and implementing them as Python programs.
The book's accompanying website ― http://discoverCS.denison.edu ― includes sample code and data files, pointers for further exploration, errata, and links to Python language references.
Containing over 600 homework exercises and over 300 integrated reflection questions, this textbook is appropriate for a first computer science course for computer science majors, an introductory scientific computing course or, at a slower pace, any introductory computer science course.
"Havill’s book introduces computer science in a very unique and effective way. The book discusses fundamental computer science concepts such as abstraction, repetition, condition, and recursion through real-world problems such as personal finance, population growth, DNA sequence, and earthquake analysis. The book is designed for a CS 1 course for majors, a CS 0 course for nonmajors with omissions, or a basic computing course for natural or social sciences students. Traditional introductory computer science content is well covered, though in a different way compared to most other introductory books. Most other introductory CS books would arrange the topics either around features of programming such as objects, variables, repetitions, conditions, and functions, or around data structures or algorithms such as list, array, graph, search, and sorting. Havill’s book presents readers with the same content using topics of real-world problems as a road map. ... For each problem studied, the author provides ample details in fine language so students can follow the discussions easily. Plenty of "Reflections" are presented throughout the discussions that inspire students to think deeper and synthesize what they just learned. ... The book is best suited for computer science majors, or students from natural sciences or social sciences. It requires a certain level of maturity with mathematics. With careful choices of omission by the instructor, students of other majors can definitely benefit from the book as well, as the author points out in the preface."
―ACM Computing Reviews, February 3, 2016
