Making a better textbook (was Re: The Deitel book)

[CShannon]

I am a college professor and use Python as the language in our first
course -- designed for both majors and non-majors alike.  There are a
number of good python reference books around.  Most of them are not
appropriate as text books however because they have few examples and
often no exercises.  I like a book that is moderate in size.  Books
often have more material than can be covered in a single semester but
it shouldn't be so large (or expensive) as to intimidate all but the
bravest of souls.  In my course, students are also expected to buy a
text dealing with social/ethical issues.

I realize the problem of course.  In my class we do cover all the
introductory material, and object oriented programming, but we also
use VPython for graphics and write some cgi scripts to process html
forms. Selecting exactly the topics to satisfy very diverse topics
without writing an enormous text is not easy.
 
benalan at cs.bu.edu (Ben Wiedermann) wrote in message news:<d6dae77c.0211061427.7191196f at posting.google.com>...
> "Chris Gonnerman" <chris.gonnerman at newcenturycomputers.net> wrote in message news:<mailman.1036590550.21817.python-list at python.org>...
> 
> > Textbooks aren't designed to be entertaining, true; but frankly
> > I found it painful to read in the final form.  The content isn't
> > the first thing one notices about a book; rather it's the 
> > presentation (cover, art, paper, etc.)
> 
> I was one of the authors of the Deitel book; but just to be clear: I
> am speaking as a Python evangelist. I am not speaking for any of my
> coauthors or for my employer. That being said...
> 
> One of the major goals for the book was to try to push Python down
> into CS1 courses, where I believe it deserves far more consideration
> than it currently receives. Our hope was that the book would
> demonstrate to professors how well suited Python is as a first
> programming language *and* how easy it is for novice programmers to
> create more complex applications (e.g., GUI, multimedia, etc.).
> 
> However, I've noticed that most of the post-publication criticism of
> the book has focused on issues like presentation, art, etc. It's not
> my job to dispute these claims. I personally believe that an author
> should stay out of subjective discussions of his book, once that book
> has been published. But I still very much believe in the promise of
> Python in the university. And because the Deitel book is the only
> college textbook of which I am aware, I wanted to get some feedback on
> what would make a more successful Python textbook. How high does
> presentation rank when considering a book? Are there examples of other
> college textbooks that people think do an excellent job in the
> presentation department? What kinds of materials can we (as a
> community) produce to get schools to consider and adopt Python as a
> first programming language? Any other thoughts on Python in the
> university?