Learn to Code by Solving Problems: A Python Programming Primer

WOW! The exact extremely gentle introduction to algorithmic programming I'm looking for! It's like USACO for kids!! All the problems are DMOJ simple problems, which is very type of simple programming problems and judge I'm looking for and this book organizes them in a way that is friendly and fun for beginners! Such a unique book! It took me buying 10+ other Python books to find it!! Thanks for putting into the work to find and compile these problems and writing this book! (I first went through the basics of Python with the first half of Python Crash Course, another No Starch Press book.)

I have had a few false starts in my journey to learn to code, some due to personal circumstances and other due to the study materials. The concept of ‘Learn to code by solving problems’ is a great fit for me. Daniel Zingsro lays out a problem and them walks your through the Python concepts to solve it. That is great but then he give you more problems to solve that use the same concepts from online coding competition websites where you can upload you code and get an instant pass or fail grade. I am not too far into the book yet but so far, it’s really helpful

I just finished the NYU python 101 course. This book was very much like the course at college where we learned to code by solving problems. This book uses the exact same approach. According to my father, a professional software engineer, the approach of this book is how all the big tech firms interview their candidates: They present a problem and the candidate tool to solve the problem is code. I highly recommend it for any starting student. I believe this will also help in my future interviews.

It is a very good book! It would strongly help to already be familiar with the concepts first and then dive into this book! I think the problem sets are amazing, challenging and chosen carefully. Only problem I have with the book is that there isn’t a way to get help or find the answers to the recommended problems at the end of each chapter. Otherwise great book! Will get his Algorithms book once I’m done with this one!

Don't give up and peek at his solution until you've done your best to solve the coding challenges on your own. It's not a comprehensive overview of Python, but you will get enough Python basics to do the coding challenges. The coding challenges start out easy and gradually get tougher. Are they goofy? Sure, but by doing them you will learn the problem-solving mindset crucial for programming in any language. Let the Python book that uses the fire hose approach be your reference manual, but let this book be the coach that trains your flabby algorithmic muscles. The coding challenges are not little sub-projects that combine into tedious multi-chapter projects. They stand alone and each of his solutions, if printed, would fit on a single sided page. I did every main (not extra) coding challenge in this book without using any coding challenge website. You can manually create a few inputs to test the code on your own, but to create thousands of inputs I used the Python standard library random module (randint).

Best resource I’ve encountered for learning to code. Most resources are either too passive, pricey, or vague. This book is all about mastering the fundamentals and building programs that comprehensively teach you to think like a programmer. Each chapter ends with multiple practice problems that vary in difficulty. Grinding through them are well worth it. By reading the chapter, and applying the concepts to solve the problems, you learn how to think, structure and write solid programs that transcend the quirky nature of the coding competition practice problems. I have been using this resource for a little over 5 months, am currently on chapter 8, and have started automating tons of manual processes at work based off the raw knowledge I have gained from this book. If you are serious about learning Python, there is absolutely no better resource to get started. One chapter, one practice problem at a time, you will be amazed with the progress you make if you stick with it. Also, Dan Zingaro is an amazing teacher, very eager to help out, and a dedicated academic focused on optimizing the way people learn computer science and programming. 100000% recommend this to anybody looking to get started

This book is excellent. I appreciate how each basic concept gets it's own chapter. This means that Zingario will go indepth on an aspect of programming that other book would just cram into one chapter called "Basics" and then move on. You feel like you have a good understanding not only of what each concept is, but also *why* we're using that concept to solve that specific problem. I found the judges really helpful too. The problem I found with exercises in a lot of other books is I'd never know if my code worked. With the judges I know if my code actually solved the problem. Would highly recommend if you're coding from zero This book should get you up to speed in no time.

This book relies on online references to code exercises (and subsequent q&a forums) which often have obscure or confusing instructions or objectives. Some exercises should be shared in later chapters; by jumping into some problems too soon, the reader may be dissuaded from how incredible and friendly Python is.

Well written book for those learning programming for the first time. I would recommend this to any novice programmers looking for a good primer on how Python works. If you are already an experienced programmer, consider looking for alternative resources as the book does assume no understanding of key concepts like loops, etc.

good book with some helpfull chalenges and information a great second step.

good

It's OK. Not very user friendly

Each section begins with a problem that the reader would have no chance of solving, or having any idea of how to go about it, then the various commands needed to solve it are introduced one by one. Finally, the solution is shown. However, for the person for whom all the commands are brand-new, how a person knows how to put them all together in order to solve the problem is not at all clear. "I would never think of coming up with that solution." At the end of each chapter, the reader is referred to a half dozen or so exercises. These are found online and consist of problems that are part of international competitions for students. Some are easily enough solvable, but some are not for people who are barely familiar with the required techniques. They are test questions, not practice questions. Even worse, you are suggested to submit your solutions to the online "judge," which is very thorough. In other words, you may have a solution that works for all the standard cases you have in mind, but the judge tests it against other, non-standard cases, and you may find yourself with no way to see what you did wrong. If this makes you too frustrated, I'd suggest just finding your own solutions and not submitting them to the judge. People who have a knack for "computational thinking" may not run into the difficulties I did. I found it less discouraging to use a book with a more standard approach, that is, with exercises more geared to making you familiar with the techniques of the chapter rather than being challenged at every step of the way.