Further Reading: Welcome to Computer Science

Computational Thinking

Wing, J. M. (2006). "Computational Thinking." Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33-35. (Tier 1) The foundational essay that popularized computational thinking as a skill for everyone, not just computer scientists. Short, readable, and still influential twenty years later.
Denning, P. J. & Tedre, M. (2019). Computational Thinking. MIT Press. (Tier 1) A concise, accessible book that traces the history of computational thinking and argues for its place in general education. Good companion to this chapter.

Ford, P. (2015). "What Is Code?" Bloomberg Businessweek. (Tier 1) A legendary 38,000-word article that explains software development to a non-technical audience. Entertaining, detailed, and surprisingly accurate about the culture of programming. Available free online.
Bossavit, L. (2015). The Leprechauns of Software Engineering. Leanpub. (Tier 1) A fascinating book that examines commonly cited "facts" about software development and traces their actual evidence (or lack thereof). Teaches critical thinking about industry claims.

Isaacson, W. (2014). The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Simon & Schuster. (Tier 1) A sweeping narrative history of computing from Ada Lovelace to the modern internet. Great for understanding the human stories behind the technology.
Abbate, J. (2012). Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. MIT Press. (Tier 1) Explores how computing went from a field with many women (in the 1950s-60s) to one dominated by men, and what that shift reveals about who "belongs" in CS.

Research by GitHub on Copilot's impact on developer productivity. (Tier 2) GitHub has published several studies measuring how AI coding assistants affect developer speed and satisfaction. Search for "GitHub Copilot research" for the latest findings. The data generally supports the view that AI assists experienced developers more than beginners.

Sweigart, A. Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (online, free). (Tier 1) An excellent practical introduction to Python focused on automation. Complements this textbook by emphasizing real-world applications. We'll reference it in later chapters.
Downey, A. Think Python, 3rd Edition (online, free). (Tier 1) Another open-source Python textbook with a stronger emphasis on CS concepts. More concise than this book, good as a second perspective on the same material.