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How Computer Programming Works (Technology in Action Series)
Product Review Imagine, for a moment, a guy. This guy, about forty years old, has worked all of his life in a job that doesn't require much knowledge of computers, certainly not of how to write software. Now, imagine that our guy decides to change career paths and learn computer programming. He goes and buys a book about a programming language, perhaps one that promotes itself as elementary. The book presents our hapless guy with recipes that he can follow, it's true, but mostly it confuses him with talk of APIs, linked lists, hashes, and a mess of other stuff that he doesn't understand, really. "I can make it all work by following directions," our guy implores into the Void. "But I don't understand what I'm doing." This guy requirements How Computer Programming Works. In this book, Daniel Appleman sets out to explain computer programming at a conceptual level, and succeeds admirably. Appleman ignores the peculiar characteristics of specific programming languages (leaving them for specialized books), and instead uses fantastic color illustrations and lucid text to explain what goes unsaid among professional programmers. He also uses pseudocode--a sort of standardized, generic programming language--and examples in BASIC to back up his points. Although Appleman approaches programming mainly from a procedural angle (the book would be better with more coverage of object-oriented programming techniques, which fundamentally are different, in many cases), the contents of this book will suit any beginning student of programming and computer science--our guy included. --David Wall Topics covered:
Product Description Just as children must learn the alphabet before they can read, future programmers must understand certain concepts before they can write their first program. This unique book uses full-color illustrations to help you truly understand the underlying computer science on which all programming is based. Veteran programmer Dan Appleman provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand explanation of computer programming, starting from a basic description of what a computer language is to coverage of how Internet programming works. The book shows you how to turn ideas into code and how to use algorithms to accomplish common tasks, and describes the basic function of compilers and interpreters. Curious readers of any age will find an accessible yet comprehensive explanation of a field that has revolutionized the way we live and work. Reader Reviews this book is a fine introduction to computing. imagine a book with cogent, well-illustrated explanations of topics like (1) what a variable is (2) linked lists (3) pointers.... ...that also discussed the plusses and minusses of various computer languages.... ...and that was useful to a professional programmer, and entertaining for his 13-year-old kid. that's this book. i occasionally teach introductory programming classes, and i've used this book as a source of handouts and overheads (within the bounds of "fair use" and the copyright laws, of course. :-) ) in my early days as a developer, i also pulled it off of the shelf more than once when i needed a quick graphical metaphor for something that i was trying to understand. Comment | | (Report this)
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