How Computer Programming Works - Softcover

Appleman, Dan; Ishida, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1562761951 ISBN 13: 9781562761950

Publisher: Pearson Education Ltd., 1994

Synopsis

An innovative blend of text and graphics demystifies programming, explaining fundamental programming concepts--such as arrays and structures, loops and Booleans--and deciphering complex concepts through the use of color illustrations, concise text, and real-world analogies. Original. (Beginner).

About this title

Review

Consider, for a moment, a guy. This guy, about 40 years old, has worked all 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 it mostly confuses him with talk of APIs, linked lists, hashes and a whole lot of other stuff he doesn't really understand. "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 needs How Computer Programming Works.

In this book, Daniel Appleman sets out to explain computer programming at a conceptual level, and he succeeds admirably. He ignores the peculiar characteristics of specific programming languages (leaving them for specialised books) and instead uses fantastic colour illustrations and lucid text to explain what goes unsaid among professional programmers. He also uses pseudocode--a sort of standardised, generic programming language--and examples in BASIC to back up his points. Though Appleman approaches programming from a mainly procedural angle (the book would be better with more coverage of object-oriented programming techniques, which are fundamentally different in many cases), the contents of this book will suit any beginning student of programming and computer science, our guy included. --David Wall

Review

Here is what an enthusiastic reader said on Amazon.com:
"Even an experienced programmer would enjoy the book."
"All in all, How Computer Programming Works is an excellent treatise and great point of entry for computer science students, beginner programmers, or even those who are just curious about computer programming but who do not want to develop programs. Teachers should also get their hands on a copy - it's a superb example of how programming concepts can be explained without generating mass confusion. ..enhanced by Sarah Ishida's excellent illustrations. These work brilliantly alongside the writer's prose, and leave little excuse for not understanding these basic concepts."
(SA Computer Magazine) "I am sure that everyone knows of programs which would have been better if their authors had kept in mind some of the principles described here." (Computing)

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson Education Ltd.
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1562761951
• ISBN 13: 9781562761950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 218