Hi all, This is a little off-topic, but I know there are a lot of people here with teaching experience. I am looking for a good book on programming. I recently picked up a gig doing ActionScript programming for a multimedia company. They have very good designers, but not very good programmers. So, they decided to hire a professional programmer to help them out with some of their projects. They have several people in the company who understand the mechanics of programming, but don't really understand the concepts. I am looking for a book to recommend to them. I would really like to find a book that just discusses programming, and avoids any one particular language. It would have to cover the common imperative controls, as well as basic data structures. Thanks. -- Matthew Donadio (m.p.donadio@ieee.org)
How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt, and Krishnamurthi is rather good at introducing the fundamentals of programming in my opinion. I've given the book to friends of mine with no background in programming or computer science and they've found it quite accessible. The text is freely available on-line too. http://htdp.org/ The book is about the general design of programs, but uses Scheme as a teaching language, and the DrScheme environment (also freely available) is tailored for use with the book. If your audience has any background in programming, they should be able to move through the text quickly. HTH -d
Matthew Donadio
They have several people in the company who understand the mechanics of programming, but don't really understand the concepts. I am looking for a book to recommend to them. I would really like to find a book that just discusses programming, and avoids any one particular language. It would have to cover the common imperative controls, as well as basic data structures.
I'd also recommend "The Pragmatic Programmer" http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ppbook/index.shtml It's difficult to summarize, but I think every programmer should read it at least once. It is mostly about the mechanics of programming also. -- Shae Erisson - this space for rent - #haskell on irc.freenode.net "Notwithstanding fervent argument that patent protection is essential for the growth of the software industry, commentators have noted that `this industry is growing by leaps and bounds without it.'" -- US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, March 3, 1981.
On Tuesday, September 2, 2003, at 07:54 PM, Matthew Donadio wrote:
They have several people in the company who understand the mechanics of programming, but don't really understand the concepts. I am looking for a book to recommend to them. I would really like to find a book that just discusses programming, and avoids any one particular language. It would have to cover the common imperative controls, as well as basic data structures.
In my previous company, I recommended Thomas Standish's _Data Structure Techniques_. It's out of print, but easily (and inexpensively) available at Amazon. I like the original 1980 edition; his later _Data Structure Techniques in Java_ is too closely tied to the Java language. It covers the usual data structures (lists, trees, strings, etc.) using pseudocode algorithms. It's at the right level for someone who has gotten the hang of programming at the level of compiling and debugging simple programs and is ready to move onto something more complicated. Best Wishes, Greg Gregory Wright Antiope Associates 18 Clay Street Fair Haven, New Jersey 07704 USA gwright@antiope.com
participants (4)
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David Van Horn -
Gregory Wright -
Matthew Donadio -
Shae Matijs Erisson