Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2016

_6.0001 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python_ is intended for students with little or no programming experience. It aims to provide students with an understanding of the role computation can play in solving problems and to help students, regardless of their major, feel justifiably confident of their ability to write small programs that allow them to accomplish useful goals. The class uses the Python 3.5 programming language.

Readings

The textbook is Buy at MIT Press Guttag, John. Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python: With Application to Understanding Data Second Edition . MIT Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780262529624. The book and the course lectures parallel each other, though there is more detail in the book about some topics. It is available both in hard copy and as an e-book. ↗
Listed reading
SES #: 1 · TOPICS: What is computation? · READINGS: Chapters 1 and 2.1
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SES #: 2 · TOPICS: Branching and Iteration · READINGS: Chapters 2.2, 2.3.1, 2.4, and 3.2
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SES #: 3 · TOPICS: String Manipulation, Guess and Check, Approximations, Bisection · READINGS: Chapters 3.1 and 3.3–3.5
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SES #: 4 · TOPICS: Decomposition, Abstractions, Functions · READINGS: Chapters 4.1–4.2 and 4.4–4.6
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SES #: 5 · TOPICS: Tuples, Lists, Aliasing, Mutability, Cloning · READINGS: Chapters 5.1–5.3.1 and 5.4–5.5
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SES #: 6 · TOPICS: Recursion, Dictionaries · READINGS: Chapters 4.3 and 5.6
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SES #: 7 · TOPICS: Testing, Debugging, Exceptions, Assertions · READINGS: Chapters 6 and 7
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SES #: 8 · TOPICS: Object Oriented Programming · READINGS: Chapter 8.1
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SES #: 9 · TOPICS: Python Classes and Inheritance · READINGS: Chapter 8.2
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SES #: 10 · TOPICS: Understanding Program Efficiency, Part 1 · READINGS: Chapters 9.1–9.3.1, 9.3.3, and 9.3.5
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SES #: 11 · TOPICS: Understanding Program Efficiency, Part 1 (Cont.) · READINGS: Chapters 9.3.2, 9.3.4, 9.3.6, and 9.3.7
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SES #: 12 · TOPICS: Searching and Sorting algorithms · READINGS: Chapters 10.1–10.2
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Sources

Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
MIT OCW readings ↗
MIT OCW syllabus ↗
Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.