Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist

The book a product director picks up when they decide to stop being afraid of code. Downey teaches programming as computational thinking, not as Python tricks — variables, conditionals, loops, functions, data structures, and the habits of decomposition that sit underneath all of them. The virtue of the book is that it assumes nothing and respects your intelligence anyway, which is a rare combination in technical writing. Finishing it will not make you an engineer, but it will make the engineering conversation go differently. It is also free, open and continuously improved — its own small lesson about how good material travels.