Textbooks

Suggested (free) online books

The fol­lo­wing books can be free­ly down­loa­ded or read onli­ne. While they do not cover exac­tly the enti­re cour­se, they have been selec­ted becau­se they assu­me a rea­der  without (much) pre­vious pro­gram­ming and algo­ri­th­mic experience.

Part A — Programming

Allen Downey. Think python — How to think like a Computer Scientist. Green Tea Press

Language PDF HTML Printed Interactive edi­tion
English [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]
Italian [Link] [Link]

Part B — Algorithms and data structures

Brad Miller and David Ranum. Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures using Python.

Language Interactive edi­tion
English [Link]

The inte­rac­ti­ve edi­tions com­bi­ne tex­tual expla­na­tions with actual Python snip­pe­ts that can be exe­cu­ted and tested direc­tly in the browser.

Printed books

These books assu­me that the rea­der is more expe­rien­ced; fur­ther­mo­re, they are avai­la­ble only in prin­ted ver­sion (legal­ly):

  • Lutz. Learning Python (5th edi­tion). O’REILLY (2013)
  • Hetland. Python Algorithms: Mastering Basic Algorithms in the Python Language. Apress, 2nd ed. (2014)
Scroll to top