"Python Programming for Kids" book

Python is the number 1 programming language as of April 2023 on the TIOBE index.

A great and proven programming language to learn from scratch, for those with no technical experience, especially for children. There are many proven bestsellers on teaching Python to kids.

The goal of the book is to take the approach to teaching children the Python language to a new level of convenience, speed, clarity, fun, and ease, in line with the world's current trends and standards.

To do this, we use a combination of the Python language with the super-popular p5/Processing multi-language graphics library, originally designed and geared towards teaching children, beginners from scratch, schoolchildren, university students, artists, musicians, that is for those without a technical background. This library is an established and proven technology with more than 20 years of experience in educational processes abroad and an excellent reputation and support of the professional community, as evidenced by the huge number of stars (17t) on the library source code storage service (github).

Moreover, we use the current foreign trend for online coding and, moreover, for mobile coding. Which allows you to expand the potential audience by almost an order of magnitude.

In brief, this book + phone is all that a child needs to learn the basics of Python programming without the help of adults, completely on their own. Write dozens of games and interactive mini-programs and share them in any usual messengers and social networks.

Annotation.

Just about every 10+ year old child has a phone. The only thing left is to buy this book so that your child will be able to learn the basics of the most popular programming language, Python, by writing several dozens of games and interactive programs completely from scratch, sitting cheerfully and relaxed on the couch, at grandma's cottage, on vacation with parents, on a walk or during recess at school. Share them with your friends and peers in the usual messengers and social networks. This book + phone - and the doors are open to an exciting journey into professional programming from scratch.

All you need is a phone that can scan QR-codes in the book or a computer/laptop. Even without opening the book, just by scanning the phone QR-code from its cover the reader will write and execute his first program in Python in seconds or minutes. We use a combination of decades of proven technology and current trends in educational approaches. We've chosen to start in programming specifically on cell phones, because according to SlickJump and Cisco research in 2021, 83% of traffic comes from mobile and only 17% from desktop computers. Foreign portals with billions of traffic already support mobile coding. Almost every schoolchild has a smartphone. Programming from a phone will allow ten times as many kids to learn programming. Our goal is to teach 1,000,000 children in Russia! This is not only simple, fast and clear, but also professional! The app will show how to work with Python on laptops and desktop computers.

The online development environment used in the book is one of the simplest, most transparent and understandable for beginners, with only code and run and save buttons. Which makes the development process for beginners as easy as possible. The development environment itself is available at p5py.khasang.ru/ide, the book blog and an archive of links to examples at p5py.khasang.ru After getting a basic experience in programming online in the browser on your phone or computer the reader can easily move to any professional Python development environment (PyCharm, VS Code, etc.), connect one of the most popular graphic libraries p5 and develop their games and programs already using professional tools.

With all the ease of exposition, super-fast start, easy learning, the book reveals quite complex topics on the basics of Python programming: commands, execution sequence, loops, lists (arrays), variables, variable scopes, conditional expressions, graphical primitives, coordinate plane, main game loop drawing games and animated programs, comments, style guide to writing professional code, methods (functions), subtleties of concatenating strings and numbers, comparison operators, random numbers, nested conditional

And all this so that after reading the book the reader is left with dozens of games written just by him from scratch: AlienStrike, FlappyRabbit, Tamagotchi, Race, Shooter, Wanderer and others.

Practical relevance of the book

1. Without possessing any prior technical skills in programming, the reader will learn the basics of programming in one of the most popular programming languages from scratch in a completely independent mode, even if he does not have a stationary computer/laptop.

2. The reader will write 20-30 mini-projects in the form of games and animation programs that can be run in the browser of an ordinary phone, laptop browser and desktop computers, in professional IDE for the language Python (using VS Code as an example).

The reader will learn one of the most popular graphic libraries for many programming languages - p5py/p5.js/Processing (17t stars on GitHub). Get a solid foundation of step-by-step design and writing your own games and programs

What is special about this book?

(how it differs from similar books in its category)

• The reader writes and executes the first full-fledged Python program in about one minute or faster. Without any customization or setup. All he needs is a book cover and a phone which can scan a QR code.

• As links to the sample code we use not only the standard and commonplace href links, but also QR codes which allow you to open the sample code in a matter of seconds. That creates a fluent experience, a sense of ease, transparency, and clarity in the process.

• Learning the basics of programming in the book, although it ends with code in a professional Python development environment, begins with programming online, in a browser-based development environment. Which straightens out the "learning curve," getting rid of the outdated long and boring beginning, the dragging start, and the slow progress. In our book, the reader gets results almost instantly and continues to get results just as quickly and predictably, which is great for the dopamine system and allows both a highly motivated start and continued, sustained and increased motivation. Our goal is to promote high and natural motivation using proven neuropsychological mechanisms in education.

• What's more, we use not just an online development environment in the book, but a fully mobile-friendly online development environment. Which dramatically expands the audience. We did a preliminary analysis comparing audience sizes based on the findings of analytics agencies (SlickJump, Cisco) and it shows that we can potentially reach 100% of the online audience (in a cross-section of our CA). As opposed to only 17% if the training in the book is concentrated around standard desktop development, which requires laptops and desktops. Since 87% of traffic in Russia in 2021 is on mobile devices. This is also confirmed by practical observations that the CA - children, almost everyone has a smartphone. And it will now be fully enough to firmly and cheerfully learn the basics of programming in the most popular (according to the index TIOBE in 2022) programming language - Python

• This approach is ideal for children who can take an inseparable couple in the form of a book + phone anywhere with them: on vacation with parents, a hike in nature, at the cottage to grandmother in addition "to the garden," to school for recess, on the street and any parties / meetings / parties. There will never be bored, there will always be a circle of peers around with a keen interest of "let me try too. Any results of the reader will be able to share immediately online link through the usual social networks and messengers. And the results of creativity can be used by everyone around, having a phone, that is, in general, almost the entire population. This will contribute to the natural, "viral" nature of spreading information about the book to potential buyers

Positioning.

There is a lack of books on the market for beginners from scratch, which would combine the advantages of clear description and quick result, and self-study, like Scratch, but would be aimed at a more professional programming language, so as not to "scare off" those who are interested in programming, but do not want to "mess around" with a very childish language, is not solid or not interesting, or seems too primitive.

Actually, I pursued this goal when I wrote "Yasha learns to program" in 2013. But now this book can be simplified and try to make it more concise and illustrative. By removing "lyrics" and water, adding more step-by-step fun instructions, reducing the theoretical volume of material at the expense of practice. By changing the practical examples to be more engaging and playful. Switching from fitting practical tasks to theory to the reverse: explaining theory through interesting practice, in line with current trends in programming education. Changing the language from Java to Python, as becoming more popular in 2022 (according to TIOBE). Changing from desktop development to online. In short, rewriting the book completely from scratch. Taking into account the author's experience in teaching tens of thousands of students in the 9 years since the first book was written.

Only the p5 (Processing) graphic library will remain. Because it has confirmed for almost a decade that it is extremely convenient, simple and understandable to beginners of any level. And it has a very high rating of the professional community (17 tons of stars on GitHub). Given the multilingual nature of the library, we can easily write the book in any of the languages for which it is adapted: Python, JavaScript, Java