Zhiwei Xu received his PhD from the University of Southern California (1987) and is a Professor at the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He is also a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). His main research areas include computer architecture and distributed systems. He has led over a dozen priority research projects in parallel and distributed computing. He has over 30 years of experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in computer architecture, computer organization, digital logic, distributed systems, introduction to computer science, and parallel processing.

Jialin Zhang received her PhD from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (2010) and is a professor at the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. She is also a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). Her main research areas include theoretical computer science and quantum computation. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in introductory computer science, design and analysis of algorithms, and advanced algorithms.

Serves as a self-contained textbook for introductory computer science courses for undergraduate students from all disciplines

Helps readers to master computational thinking from the aspects of logic thinking, algorithmic thinking, systems thinking, and network thinking

Includes over 200 examples, exercises and projects to encourage hands-on learning, while the companion website includes lecture slides, code and multimedia files, and solutions to homework problems