"Scratch is a fun, beginner-friendly programming environment popular in schools around the world. Its playful, intuitive interface uses colorful programming blocks and cartoon sprites to make real programming more approachable. Learn to Program with Scratch shows just how much you can do with Scratch and teaches you essential, universal programming concepts along the way. In Learn to Program with Scratch, author Majed Marji takes you on a tour through...

Complete your introduction to elementary programming by looking at parameters—the major technique for passing information through functions. Learn when a parameter or variable is "in scope,"how to work with list data that can change when passed as a parameter, and what it means for parameters to have default values.

One of the biggest thrills from writing code comes from getting a computer to perform a sequence of instructions repeatedly until a task is complete. Discover the ease of writing such loop programs and also the peril of getting stuck in infinite loops. Investigate while loops, for loops, and iterations.

Programming is an eminently learnable skill that gives you unrivalled problem-solving power you can apply in all areas of life. It’s also a fun, creative activity that provides insight into how we control the devices that influence virtually every aspect of our lives. The 24 engaging and information-rich lessons of How to Program teach you one of the world’s most accessible and powerful computer languages, Python.

Use the knowledge you’ve gained so far to design a grid-based matching game—an entertaining way to practice top-down development of more complex programs using functions. You’ll see how rough-and-ready lines of code known as stubs come in very handy as you tackle such projects.

Any time a computer takes different paths depending on your response, there is usually a conditional statement involved. Delve into these widely used tools, looking at branching points, comparisons, if/then statements, nesting conditionals, and Boolean (true/false) expressions.

Study some of the basic operations of computers. First, investigate the memory hierarchy and what the CPU does. Then consider variables, which are like boxes where units of data are stored in a program. Look at simple arithmetic operations with variables, and try input/output commands.

Data structures allow you to perform operations more effectively. Start with two of the most basic data structures, stacks and queues, discovering that both can be executed using lists. Then move to non-linear data structures, exemplified by dictionaries and sets, which can be implemented using a hash table.

Take what you have learned about lists, loops, files, and other techniques and design a program that lets you analyze weather data. Sound daunting? Discover the trick of top-down design, which breaks a complex task into manageable parts and is applicable not just to coding but to any major project.

In computing, a graph is a mathematical structure composed of vertices and edges. Discover its incredible power to capture relationships such as the airline routes between cities and the friends in a social network. Try writing programs utilizing graphs and a special type of graph called trees.