understand what you’re doing, but without requiring you to have a PhD in math. Every one of the examples shows the expected output and tells you why that output is important. You aren’t left with the feeling that something is missing.
Of course, you might still be worried about the whole programming environment issue, and this book doesn’t leave you in the dark there, either. This book relies on Google Colab to provide a programming environment (although you can use Jupyter Notebook quite easily, too). Because you access Colab through a browser, you can program anywhere and at any time that you have access to a browser, even on your smartphone while at the dentist’s office or possibly while standing on your head watching reruns of your favorite show.
To help you absorb the concepts, this book uses the following conventions:
Text that you’re meant to type just as it appears in the book is in bold. The exception is when you’re working through a step list: Because each step is bold, the text to type is not bold.
Words that we want you to type in that are also in italics are used as placeholders, which means that you need to replace them with something that works for you. For example, if you see “Type Your Name and press Enter,” you need to replace Your Name with your actual name.
We also use italics for terms we define. This means that you don’t have to rely on other sources to provide the definitions you need.
Web addresses and programming code appear in monofont. If you're reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the Internet, you can click the live link to visit that website, like this: http://www.dummies.com.
When you need to click command sequences, you see them separated by a special arrow, like this: File ⇒ New File, which tells you to click File and then New File.
Foolish Assumptions
You might find it difficult to believe that we’ve assumed anything about you — after all, we haven’t even met you yet! Although most assumptions are indeed foolish, we made certain assumptions to provide a starting point for the book.
The first assumption is that you’re familiar with the platform you want to use, because the book doesn’t provide any guidance in this regard. (Chapter 3 does, however, tell you how to access Google Colab from your browser and use it to work with the code examples in the book.) To give you the maximum information about Python with regard to algorithms, this book doesn’t discuss any platform-specific issues. You really do need to know how to install applications, use applications, and generally work with your chosen platform before you begin working with this book.
This book isn’t a math primer. Yes, you see lots of examples of complex math, but the emphasis is on helping you use Python to perform common tasks using algorithms rather than learning math theory. However, you do get explanations of many of the algorithms used in the book so that you can understand how the algorithms work. Chapters 1 and 2 guide you through a what you need to know in order to use this book successfully. Chapter 5 is a special chapter that discusses how to create your own math library, which significantly aids you in understanding how math works with code to create a reusable package. It also looks dandy on your resume to say that you’ve created your own math library.
This book also assumes that you can access items on the Internet. Sprinkled throughout are numerous references to online material that will enhance your learning experience. However, these added sources are useful only if you actually find and use them. You must also have Internet access to use Google Colab.
Icons Used in This Book
As you read this book, you encounter icons in the margins that indicate material of interest (or not, as the case may be). Here’s what the icons mean:
Beyond the Book
This book isn’t the end of your Python or algorithm learning experience — it’s really just the beginning. We provide online content to make this book more flexible and better able to meet your needs. That way, as we receive email from you, we can address questions and tell you how updates to Python, or its associated add-ons affect book content. In fact, you gain access to all these cool additions:
Cheat sheet: You remember using crib notes in school to make a better mark on a test, don’t you? You do? Well, a cheat sheet is sort of like that. It provides you with some special notes about tasks that you can do with Python, Google Colab, and algorithms that not every other person knows. To find the cheat sheet for this book, go to www.dummies.com and enter Algorithms For Dummies, 2nd Edition Cheat Sheet in the search box. The cheat sheet contains really neat information such as finding the algorithms that you commonly need to perform specific tasks.
Updates: Sometimes changes happen. For example, we might not have seen an upcoming change when we looked into our crystal ball during the writing of this book. In the past, this possibility simply meant that the book became outdated and less useful, but you can now find updates to the book, if we make any, by going to www.dummies.com and entering Algorithms For Dummies, 2nd Edition in the search box.In addition to these updates, check out the blog posts with answers to reader questions and demonstrations of useful book-related techniques at http://blog.johnmuellerbooks.com/.
Companion files: Hey! Who really wants to type all the code in the book and reconstruct all those plots manually? Most readers prefer to spend their time
