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

[Anton Vredegoor]

On 6 Nov 2002 14:27:28 -0800, benalan at cs.bu.edu (Ben Wiedermann)
wrote:

>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?

Just to repond to the "other thoughts" part: "Combinatorial
Algorithms" by Kreher and Stinson is a fascinating book, and I
regularly use it as a resource for programming algorithms. The
algorithms are notated in a kind of pseudo computer language that is
very easy to convert to python. There is a webpage for the book where
one can download some C sourcecode implementing the algorithms. Seeing
these beautiful algorithms converted to C sends shudders down my
spine.

Starting from these C-sources sometimes but mostly using the pseudo
algorithms in the book I am slowly converting each algorithm in the
book to python. Since this process is driven by the occasions that I
need a specific algorithm it's pace is determined by my progress on
the path of leaning combinatorial algorithms. Sometimes I imagine
however how incredibly good an argument for python the book could
become if the pseudo code would be replaced by python, or, failing
that, if the webpage would also provide python versions of the
algorithms.

AV.