Includes bibliographical references and index.

Most introductory programming textbooks are written with the assumption that the student thinks like a computer scientist. That is, writers assume that the student best learns programming by focusing on the structure and syntax of programming languages. The result is an introductory textbook that teaches programming in a way that is accessible to future programmers and developers but not as much to scientists or engineers who mainly want to investigate scientific problems. This textbook is written to teach programming to scientists and engineers, not to computer scientists. We assume that the reader has no background, formal or informal, in computer programming. It is organized around a scientist or engineer's workflow. What are the tasks of a scientist or engineer that a computer can help with? Doing calculations (e.g., Chapters 1 and 6), making a plot (e.g., Chapters 4 and 5), handling missing data (e.g., Chapter 15), and saving and storing data (e.g., Chapters 9 and 18) are just a few of the tasks we address. It teaches programming, not numerical methods, statistics, data analytics, or image processing. The level of math that the reader needs is modest so the text is accessible to a first-year college student. It provides examples pertinent to the natural sciences and engineering.