David E. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python 2ed 2020

Textbook in PDF format

A Note to Parents and Fellow Programmers
My motivation for writing this book comes from a gap I saw in today’s literature for kids interested in learning to program. I started programming when I was 9 years old in the BASIC language with a book similar to this one. During the course of writing this, I’ve realized how a modern language like Python has made programming far easier and versatile for a new generation of programmers. Python has a gentle learning curve while still being a serious language that is used by programmers professionally.
The current crop of programming books for kids that I’ve seen fell into two categories. First, books that did not teach programming so much as “game creation software” or a dumbed-down languages to make programming “easy” (to the point that it is no longer programming). Or second, they taught programming like a mathematics textbook: all principles and concepts with little application given to the reader. This book takes a different approach: show the source code for games right up front and explain programming principles from the examples.
Who is this book for?
Programming isn’t hard. But it is hard to find learning materials that teach you to do interesting things with programming. Other computer books go over many topics that most newbie coders don’t need. This book will teach you how to program your own computer games. You will learn a useful skill and have fun games to show for it! This book is for:
- Complete beginners who wants to teach themselves computer programming, even if they have no previous experience programming.
- Kids and teenagers who want to learn computer programming by creating games. Kids as young as 9 or 10 years old should be able to follow along.
- Adults and teachers who wish to teach others programming.
- Anyone, young or old, who wants to learn how to program by learning a professional programming language