Creative Coding in Python: 30+ Programming Projects in Art, Games, and More

As a computer science teacher, I have found that many of the coding books available for tweens and teens do not lead to long term learning of a programming language. These books typically have lots and lots of code that the reader uses to create projects, but the reader is often not learning the concepts behind the code and they are not able to transfer anything they have done to a new programming project. Creative Coding in Python is the answer to this problem and a fun and engaging way to learn to program in Python. Each chapter of Creative Coding in Python allows the reader to create a programming project like a chatbot or geometric art or interactive fiction or a game. The Big Ideas in each chapter provide foundational knowledge about programming concepts like variables, loops, lists, conditionals, functions, and more with short explanatory text and code that readers can try themselves. In addition to the explanatory text and code examples, readers are also presented with flowcharts or pseudocode of what they will be creating. This helps readers to build the good programming habits of thinking about the project they are creating and planning before programming. Once the Big Ideas are introduced, readers then create the main project for the chapter. While code is provided for the basic project, readers are also asked to improve the basic project in some way. Each chapter also has an Experiment and Extend section with more programming project ideas that can be created with the knowledge from the Big Ideas. Completing the projects in this section of each chapter reinforces the learning and provides the needed transfer of the concepts to new programming challenges. Parents: If you are looking for a book for your budding programmer who wants to truly learn an industry standard language, this would be a great book for your child. By reading, understanding, and completing the programming projects, your child will have a solid foundational knowledge of Python and some creative programming projects to show off, as well. Teachers: Do you have students that are ready to move on to text-based programming but the rest of your class isn’t ready yet? Creative Coding in Python would be a great addition to your classroom for those students. It is the latest addition to my classroom library. Beyond adding the book to your classroom library, this book and the companion website could be a great primer for you, as a teacher, if you would like to teach an introductory Python class to your students.

What I like best about this book is that the approach is to build a useful project, and use it to introduce programming concepts. Starting in chapter 1, we build a simple chatbot, and use it to introduce important concepts such as variables, input, printing and commenting the code. All the other introductory material I’ve come across starts with abstract programming concepts, without providing a framework of how to assemble the concepts into a program. This book’s approach is much easier to grasp. Another important aspect are frequent sidebars to explain how to deal with the “overhead” of coding: how to create and save a new program file, how to interpret errors to debug the program, and that choosing good names for variables and functions is helpful in the long run. I can see this being a valuable textbook for computer classes as early as middle-school. In addition to providing a shallow learning curve, each chapter ends with “Experiment and Extend” with some engaging programming project suggestions that could be homework or in-class assignments. By the end of the book, we’ve progressed to writing interactive graphic games. I was inspired to create a turtle-graphic photo of a random walk, attached.

This book arrived just in time to make it into the Xmas stockings of the middle-schoolers on our list. It's a gentle introduction to programming (coding) with easy-to-follow declarative instructions accompanied by rich illustrations. Python is a suitable language for beginners in terms of syntax, popularity, and the availability of tools and samples. IDLE is a good starter environment to learn the ropes. The projects are simple and gratifying but leave room for creative experimentation. Starting from variables, operations, input/output the reader is introduced to more powerful concepts such as loops, conditions, and functions, eventually culminating in GUI's and animation. The companion website is useful for access to the underlying code though I think it's more educational to follow along and type the code. I look forward to future work from the author. Computing skills are gaining importance and this book is useful for anyone with the interest & motivation to learn more.

I bought this book for my daughter to begin over the summer before her high school Python programming class began. It helped her got a good head start. However, if you have experience programming, this book may be too basic for you.

This is a great project-oriented way to learn the basics of Python. First thing you should note is that this is not a book for getting into the beginner's details of logic, theory, or fundamentals of coding. This book is a fun way to get beginners intrigued by coding by using fun and interesting projects that might pique their interest, because that's (arguably) more important at a younger age. This book gives a good taste of what Python is capable of doing without saying it outright. One issue I have with many other "Intro" level books is that they don't give applications for what you're learning, just the theory. This book does a good job giving context to that. Python has a ridiculous number of libraries, but the book gently introduces only the ones that are needed for a certain project, which include coding colorful geometric shapes, creating chatbots, and simple games. One thing to note is that, while this book is definitely for beginners, the language implies a certain level of reading comprehension, computer knowledge, self-starter-ness, and patience. So, don't toss this to your 8 year old and expect them to just run with it.

What struck me right away about this particular coding book is that readers start coding fun projects right away. I love how each chapters offers a main project like “Create Your Own Adventure Games” and then has many ideas for extensions and experiments. There’s even a cool website for the book listed in the Resources section. Can I also say that I absolutely love how the graphics and content for the book are gender neutral encouraging girls and boys to code! All three of my kids, 8-13 years old, are loving the projects here. The author does an outstanding job of making the foundations of coding clear and easy to understand for all levels. It's so good I'm learning Python along with my kids!

From the synopsis I expected more in depth coding that I could study. For me a fully coded project that I could study for flow, context and detail would be most helpful.

I chose this after reviewing many books before teaching my first "Coding" class and nothing else came close to being this good. The engaging projects and colorful illustrations sucked my students in. The project extensions brought out their creativity in ways that amazed both me and their parents. This takes the reader from zero to programming arcade style games very quickly. The art projects are a great way to tie in geometry and to unleash creativity.

My son likes it. He says it's "cool"

Excelente

It fit a kids' understanding level and the projects are interesting.

This is the best book ever I loved it ❤️.

Such an amazing book