Thanks to Dr. Alan McLeod for the content of this page.

The textbook for this course is "Starting Out With Python" (Pearson/Addison Wesley, ISBN 978-0-321-53711-9) by Tony Gaddis. It is for sale in the campus bookstore and is recommended, but not required. This textbook has been used in CISC 101 for the last two years; used copies should be available.

First time programmers will find this text to be a very well-written introduction to the Python programming language. It comes with a CD containing sample code and exercise solutions. However, it suffers from a significant drawback: the book refers to Python 2.5 while CISC 101 is taught using Python 3. A list of the primary differences between versions 2 and 3 can be found on this resources page. A good, more current textbook is not yet available. Many students have found the lecture content and the internet resources sufficient for this course, and did not need the textbook.