CIT 590 Textbooks and Resources
David Matuszek

Textbooks

Note: Kindle editions are cheaper, but don't work very well on a phone or the physical (black and white) Kindle device. Better if you have a tablet or intend to read them on your laptop.

Python in Easy Steps

Python in Easy Steps
Mike McGrath

$14.99 in bookstore
$12.87 on Amazon
$9.99 for Kindle edition

What I like about this book:
     Cheap!
     Short enough to actually read
     Light enough to carry around
     Covers everything we need for this course

What I don't like about this book:
     Style: Puts spaces inside parentheses
       like this: print( result )

Java in Easy Steps

Java in Easy Steps
Mike McGrath

$14.99 in bookstore
$11.97 on Amazon
$9.99 for Kindle edition

What I like about this book:
     Cheap!
     Short enough to actually read
     Light enough to carry around
     Probably covers everything we need for this course

What I don't like about this book:
     Style: Uses C language style braces
          while (condition)
          {
                  code
          }
     instead of Java language style braces
          while (condition) {
                  code
           }
Make: Processing
 Totally optional:

Getting Started with Processing: A Hands-On Introduction to Making Interactive Graphics
Casey Reas and Ben Fry

$17.70 on Amazon
$8.49 for Kindle edition

What I like about this book:
     Very well written and easy to understand
     Cheap

What I don't like about this book:
     Not as complete as online resources
 

Software

Additional Documentation

There's a lot of documentation on the web, including free textbooks; just Google for them.

There are differences between Python 2 and Python 3, so don't confuse yourself by reading about the wrong version.

Each version of Java adds a bunch of stuff, but (almost) never invalidates anything that was there before. Hence, you can use whatever material you like best, even if it's quite old.