Programming for the Puzzled: Learn to Program While Solving Puzzles

Learning programming with one of “the coolest applications around”: algorithmic puzzles ranging from scheduling selfie time to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis.

This book builds a bridge between the recreational world of algorithmic puzzles (puzzles that can be solved by algorithms) and the pragmatic world of computer programming, teaching readers to program while solving puzzles. Few introductory students want to program for programming’s sake. Puzzles are real-world applications that are attention grabbing, intriguing, and easy to describe.

Each lesson starts with the description of a puzzle. After a failed attempt or two at solving the puzzle, the reader arrives at an Aha! moment — a search strategy, data structure, or mathematical fact — and the solution presents itself. The solution to the puzzle becomes the specification of the code to be written. Readers will thus know what the code is supposed to do before seeing the code itself. This represents a pedagogical philosophy that decouples understanding the functionality of the code from understanding programming language syntax and semantics. Python syntax and semantics required to understand the code are explained as needed for each puzzle.

Readers need only the rudimentary grasp of programming concepts that can be obtained from introductory or AP computer science classes in high school. The book includes more than twenty puzzles and more than seventy programming exercises that vary in difficulty. Many of the puzzles are well known and have appeared in publications and on websites in many variations. They range from scheduling selfie time with celebrities to solving Sudoku problems in seconds to verifying the six degrees of separation hypothesis. The code for selected puzzle solutions is downloadable from the book’s website; the code for all puzzle solutions is available to instructors.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 You Will All Conform
Chapter 2 The Best Time To Party
Chapter 3 You Can Read Minds (With A Little Calibration)
Chapter 4 Keep Those Queens Apart
Chapter 5 Please Do Break The Crystal
Chapter 6 Find That Fake
Chapter 7 Hip To Be A Square Root
Chapter 8 Guess Who Isn’T Coming To Dinner
Chapter 9 America’S Got Talent
Chapter 10 A Profusion Of Queens
Chapter 11 Tile That Courtyard, Please
Chapter 12 The Towers Of Brahma With A Twist
Chapter 13 The Disorganized Handyman
Chapter 14 You Won’T Want To Play Sudoku Again
Chapter 15 Counting The Ways You Can Count Change
Chapter 16 Greed Is Good
Chapter 17 Anagramania
Chapter 18 Memory Serves You Well
Chapter 19 A Weekend To Remember
Chapter 20 Six Degrees Of Separation
Chapter 21 Questions Have A Price