This is the fourth edition of a book I started writing in 1999, when I was teaching at Colby College. I had taught an introductory computer science class using the Java programming language, but I had not found a textbook I was happy with. For one thing, they were all too big! There was no way my students would read 800 pages of dense, technical material, even if I wanted them to. And I didn’t want them to. Most of the material was too specific—details about Java and its libraries that would be obsolete by the end of the semester, and that obscured the material I really. | How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Java Version ii How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Java Version Allen B. Downey Version April 23 .