=== Introduction to High-Level Programming for Students of C ===

The purpose of this 3-week course is to provide an efficient transition from
C to high-level programming.  The pace is faster than a typical introductory
course.  We assume you already understand the basics - data types, pointers,
functions, and are comfortable writing a simple program in C.   You now have
an excellent foundation for work with high-level languages like C++, Java,
or Python.

We have chosen Python as the vehicle for this transition for these reasons:

1) Python is half the complexity of Java or C++, yet is especially clear on
what we want students to learn (modular design, object-oriented programming,
and good programming practices, including coding style, documentation, and
unit testing).

2) Python is an ideal "personal productivity language" for any technical
professional.  It will serve students well in their careers, providing the
functionality and convenience of MatLab, but in a general-purpose
programming language.  Even full-time Java programmers will find it useful
as a prototyping language.

3) Python is a mature language, with well-developed libraries and a large,
very active community of users, including a group [edu-sig] focused on using
Python in education.

4) Python was built on top of C.  There is no relearning the details of
literals, identifiers, operators, and expressions.  The few "diffs" from C
have a simple rationale, and are easily remembered.

5) Python is very similar to Java, and for those students continuing to
Java, the transition should be easy.

Students are delighted with the simpler, more powerful Python language, and
some want to forget about C.  We end with an example program written in
Python to display Mandelbrot images.  By replacing a few lines of Python
with inline C, we make the program run 100 times faster.

Someday, there may be a language as easy as Python and as efficient as C.
Until then, Python and C together make a winning combo.

Contents

1) Annotated examples
  - translations to Python of already-familiar programs in C

2) Transition from C to Python
 - Twelve most important things a C programmer should know about Python
 - Table of diffs C to Python

3) Real-world programs
 - Scientific programming with SciPy, Python's alternative to MatLab
 - Mandelbrot images, adding inline C using scipy.weave