I regularly roam the Internet in search of solutions to simple questions and often find the answers in sites such as stackoverflow.com, biostars.org or similar forums. Once in a while I find interesting, free materials, such as the FREE “Think” book series by Allen B. Downey on Green Tea Press.
The premise of this series is clear from the (Free) Textbook manifesto:
Students should read and understand textbooks.
The books are indeed free to download in various forms, but could also be purchased as they are also published by O’Reilly publishers.
For example Think Python 2nd Edition by Allen B. Downey can be purchased on Amazon, downloaded as a PDF, reads online in HTML, and example programs and solutions are available as a GitHub repository.
Free book series
Think like a computer scientist
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Think Python 2e: How To Think Like a Computer Scientist | An introduction to programming using Python, one of the best programming languages for beginners. The second edition uses Python 3 |
| Think Python 1e: How To Think Like a Computer Scientist | The first edition of Think Python, using Python 2. |
| Think Perl 6: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist | A new introduction to Perl 6 by Laurent Rosenfeld. |
Data Science in Python
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Think Stats, 2nd Edition | An introduction to exploratory data analysis. Like the first edition, this book emphasizes simple computational tools for exploring real data. […] This book revises and extends the first edition, Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers |
| Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics in Python | An introduction to Bayesian statistics using simple Python programs instead of complicated math. |
| Think DSP: Digital Signal Processing in Python | An introduction to digital signal processing with applications to sound and image processing. |
| Think Complexity 2e: Exploring Complexity Science with Python | An introduction to complexity science, which includes small world graphs, scale-free networks, cellular automata, fractals and pink noise, self-organized criticality, and agent-based models. |
More series
There are more series on the Green Tea Press web site for:
- Java
- Physical modeling
- Operating systems
- How to think…
Books are Free
All books are available under free licenses that allow readers to copy and distribute the text; they are also free to modify it, which allows them to adapt the book to different needs, and to help develop new material.