Allen Downey,
Thank you for participating in the book giveaway. My first question is simple - which version of Python is your book written for? 2.x? 3.x?
I see at Amazon that you have written books for C++,
Java, R, and Perl and an earlier book on Python. What made you decide to tackle Python again? I presume for someone new to computer science Python is an easier choice than C++, Java, or R. But introductory work with Perl, for example, is in my opinion not appreciably more complex than introductory work in Python. I think there is a lot of obfuscated Perl code out in the web, but starting with print "Hello World!\n" in Perl is not much worse than starting out in Python.
Also, I'm curious what made you pick Python as an introductory language instead of, for example, Javascript, Ruby, or Scheme.
Thanks for your time.