Preface

Welcome to the preface! In time, this preface will contain more information about the purpose of this book, suggested ways of reading it, etc. For now, it just contains some basic information on some notation you’ll see throughout the book.

Example code

Some chapters in the book rely on example code that we provide through the following repository on GiHub:

https://github.com/cs-apps-book/examples

When referring to individual example files, we will use the full path within that repository. For example, getting-started/code-organization/arithmetic.py

Additional information boxes

Throughout the book, you will encounter four types of information boxes:

Technical Details

This kind of box provides deeper technical details about something that was just explained. These technical details are not essential to understanding the concept or skill that precedes this box, and are mostly provided for readers who want to dig a bit deeper (specially if you’re the kind of learner who has an easier time understanding new concepts with those lower-level details).

This means that you can usually safely skip these boxes on your first read through a chapter. However, if you do so, we still recommend revisiting these boxes once you become more comfortable with the material.

Common Pitfalls

This kind of box alerts you to common pitfalls that beginners sometimes make. Make sure to read this box so you don’t fall into those pitfalls yourself!

Debugging Tips

As we’ll describe later in the book, debugging issues in your code can sometimes feel like solving a murder mystery where you are both the detective and the murderer. Pinpointing the cause of errors in your code is a skill that takes time to build, so we’ve made sure to include debugging tips throughout the book so you know what to look out for when your code fails in certain ways.

Note

Notes are used to clarify certain concepts, or to call out information that doesn’t fit into any of the above boxes.

Special sections

Sometimes, entire sections of the book will revolve around the kind of technical details we would include in a Technical Details box (as described above). Look out for sections with the gears icon like this:

Technical Details Section

When you see a section like this, remember that you can safely skip it if you want to, but may want to revisit it later on.