Thread by @ShriramKMurthi

It is with immense pleasure that @KathiFisler, Ben Lerner, @joepolitz, and I announce the first version of our new book, DCIC: a Data-Centric Introduction to Computing. This brief thread explains the book a little. 1/10
dcic-world.org

The book is driven by three core VALUES: software is written to be read, not only run; programmers are responsible for meeting goals; and programs must be amenable to prediction. That is, it's not just a run-of-the-mill programming text. 2/10

Curricularly, there are three big ideas. The first is an innovation: data-centricity. @KathiFisler and I wrote about this in CACM last year, calling it a challenge and opportunity for computing education. Here, we're executing on that.
cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publicatio…
3/10

The second is our emphasis on notional machines. Computing education research loves to TALK about notional machines but you'd be hard-pressed to see them in curricula. We develop and use a sequence of them to grow with student learning. We have more to come! 4/10

Next, as part of our Responsible Computer Science initiative, we're weaving social responsibility into the text. As much as possible, we're going to try to localize the effects so the effects are concrete and immediate, not hazy and disconnected. 5/10

Overall, the book is driven by a lot of research we have done over the past many years. We've studied and written about learning approaches, curricular materials, and technologies. All are finding their way into the book. 6/10

I know, I know: you don't care. What you really want to know is, "What programming language did you use?" Is it a "Java book", a "Python book", or something else? That's always the million dollar question. Well, it's complicated. 7/10

The "million dollar" part is not *entirely* a joke: if we'd just written a straight-up Python book, we'd probably do very well financially. But Python is sufficiently problematic that we built @PyretLang. But the book *transitions* to Python for the back "half". 8/10

I put "half" in quotes because the book is divided into four major parts. We've carefully minimized/avoided dependencies between them so that they can be remixed into different courses, which is what we ourselves do. 9/10

All the above is discussed in some detail in the book's introduction [dcic-world.org/2021-08-21/par…]. The book is free in full online and will remain that way. Happy to talk about it more! • 10/10