welcome

AI coding assistants are here. In the past two years, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and others have transformed how people program. The two of us have spent our careers researching and enhancing student learning of programming. Here’s the truth: we’ve never seen anything come close to the possibilities that generative AI holds for improving people’s introduction to programming.

In this book, we fully embrace these tools and use them to offer an alternative way to learn Python and how to program with it. We believe that new learners of Python shouldn’t be spending time learning low-level details that are now mostly solved by the AI coding assistants. Instead, we believe that these tools empower you to write larger and more powerful software faster.

This book is for those who are interested in learning how to write software with Python or for the many people who tried and failed (we understand!) to learn how to write Python code in the traditional way. No prior programming skills are required, but we expect you to be comfortable with installing software and managing files.