slightly updated README.md and preface

Author: thomasWeise

README.md

@@ -4,23 +4,49 @@
 
 **Download our book from <https://thomasweise.github.io/programmingWithPython/programmingWithPython.pdf>.**
 
-This project is work-in-progress.
-The goal is to provide an introduction course into programming with Python.
-
 **If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the book, or if you spotted an error or typo, please feel free to submit an [issue here](https://github.com/thomasWeise/programmingWithPython/issues).**
 Your feedback would help us to improve the book.
 
+This book tries to teach undergraduate and graduate students as well as high school students how to program with the Python programming language.
+It aims to strike a good balance between theory and practice, leaning more to the practice side.
+In particular, we try to teach programming together with some software engineering concepts.
+It is the firm opinion of the author that these two cannot be separated.
+Teaching programming alone without introducing tools such as static code analysis, unit tests, and enforcing principles such as code style and proper commenting will create bad programmers.
+So we discuss these aspects while working our way through the principles of programming.
+
+This book is intended to be read on an electronic device.
+Please do not print it.
+Help preserving the environment.
+
+This book is work in progress.
+It will take years to be completed and I plan to keep improving and extending it for quite some time.
+
+This book is freely available.
+You can download its newest version from <https://thomasweise.github.io/programmingWithPython/>.
+This version may change since this book is, well, work in progress.
+You can freely share this.
+You can also copy text or figures, as long as you cite the book as the original source, e.g., by using the following BibTeX:
+
+<pre>@book{programmingWithPython,<br/>&nbsp;author&nbsp;=&nbsp;{<a href="http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn/5">Thomas&nbsp;Weise</a>},<br/>&nbsp;title&nbsp;=&nbsp;{Programming&nbsp;with&nbsp;Python},<br/>&nbsp;year&nbsp;=&nbsp;{2024},<br/>&nbsp;publisher&nbsp;=&nbsp;{<a href="http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn">Institute&nbsp;of&nbsp;Applied&nbsp;Optimization</a>,<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/aibd">School&nbsp;of&nbsp;Artificial&nbsp;Intelligence&nbsp;and&nbsp;Big&nbsp;Data</a>,<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/">Hefei&nbsp;University</a>},<br/>&nbsp;address&nbsp;=&nbsp;{Hefei,&nbsp;Anhui,&nbsp;China},<br/>&nbsp;url&nbsp;=&nbsp;{<a href="https://thomasweise.github.io/programmingWithPython">https://thomasweise.github.io/programmingWithPython</a>}<br/>}</pre>
+
+This book contains a lot of examples.
+You can find all of them in the repository <https://github.com/thomasWeise/programmingWithPythonCode>.
+You can clone this repository and play with these example codes.
+
+
 ## 2. License
 This book is released under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC&nbsp;BY&#8209;NC&#8209;SA&nbsp;4.0), see [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) for a summary.
 
-We statically include the [pdfsizeopt](https://github.com/pts/pdfsizeopt) tool to compress the book pdf file.
-This tool is excluded from the license mentioned above; it is under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 and the copyright belongs to its authors.
+We statically include the [pdfsizeopt](https://github.com/pts/pdfsizeopt) tool in the [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/thomasWeise/programmingWithPython) of our book and use it during the book compiling and building process to compress the book pdf file.
+This tool is excluded from the license mentioned above.
+It is under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 and the copyright belongs to its authors.
+
 
 ## 3. Contact
 If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact
 Prof. Dr. [Thomas Weise](http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn/5) (汤卫思教授)
 at the Institute of Applied Optimization (应用优化研究所, [IAO](http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn))
-of the School of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data ([人工智能与大数据学院](http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/jsjx/))
+of the School of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data ([人工智能与大数据学院](http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/aibd))
 of [Hefei University](http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/english/) ([合肥大学](http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/)),
 in Hefei, Anhui, China (中国安徽省合肥市)
 via email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) with CC to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

text/front/preface/preface.tex

@@ -1,7 +1,14 @@
 \chapter*{Preface}%
 \pdfbookmark{Preface}{preface}%
 %
-This book is intended to be read on an electronic devise.
+This book tries to teach undergraduate and graduate students as well as high school students how to program with the \python\ programming language.
+It aims to strike a good balance between theory and practice, leaning more to the practice side.
+In particular, we try to teach programming together with some software engineering concepts.
+It is the firm opinion of the author that these two cannot be separated.
+Teaching programming alone without introducing tools such as static code analysis, unit tests, and enforcing principles such as code style and proper commenting will create bad programmers.
+So we discuss these aspects while working our way through the principles of programming.
+
+This book is intended to be read on an electronic device.
 Please do not print it.
 Help preserving the environment.
 
@@ -45,7 +52,7 @@ \chapter*{Preface}%
 Copyright \textcopyright\ 2024\\[3pt]%
 Prof.~Dr.~\href{http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn/5}{Thomas Weise}~\cnPdf{profWeise}\\%
 at the Institute of Applied Optimization~(\cnPdfRaw{iao}, \href{http://iao.hfuu.edu.cn}{IAO})\\%
-of the School of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data~(\href{http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/jsjx/}{\cnPdfRaw{schoolLink}})\\%
+of the School of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data~(\href{http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/aibd}{\cnPdfRaw{schoolLink}})\\%
 of \href{http://www.hfuu.edu.cn/english}{Hefei University}~(\href{http://www.hfuu.edu.cn}{\cnPdfRaw{uniLink}}),\\%
 in Hefei, Anhui, China~\cnPdf{city}\\[6pt]%
 Contact me via email to \href{mailto:[email protected]}{[email protected]} with CC to \href{mailto:[email protected]}{[email protected]}.%