preface the text assumes that you have some prior experience in computer programmingprobably from an introductory programming course where you learned to break simple problems into steps that could be solved by computer the language you used may have been pythonbut not necessarily python is an excellent language for text on data structures and algorithms whether you have used it before or not python is an object-oriented programming language with operator overloading and dynamic typing whether this is your first exposure to python or you used it in your first courseyou will learn more about the language from this text the first of the text reviews some of the fundamentals of computer programming along with the basic syntax of python to get you up to speed in the language then subsequent dive into more advanced topics and should be read in sequence at the beginning of every the goals of the are stated at the end of every is set of review questions that reinforce the goals of the these review questions are followed in each by few programming problems that relate to the goals by asking you to use the things you learned in the and apply them to computer program you can motivate your reading of by first consulting the review questions and then reading the to answer them along the waythere are lots of examples to illustrate the concepts being introduced we hope you enjoy the textif you have any questions or comments please send them to kentdlee@luther edu kent lee steve hubbard this copy belongs to 'acha