Beginning Programming For Dummies [Paperback]

Wallace Wang (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764508350 | ISBN-13: 978-0764508356 | Publication Date: March 29, 2001 | Edition: 2nd

Despite popular belief, anyone can learn to program a computer. Computer programming doesn't require a high IQ and an innate proficiency in advanced mathematics. All that's required is a desire to learn and the patience to never give up.

If you've ever dreamed of writing your own programs, rest assured that you can. Programming can be a lot of fun, but it can also be frustrating, annoying, and time-consuming. And that's why you need Beginning Programming For Dummies, 2nd Edition – to help you discover how to program a computer with the minimum amount of inconvenience and the maximum amount of enjoyment.

Now, enjoyment can go only so far. In fact, not many people program just for the fun of it; usually, they want to create a program to do something unique to their lives, or perhaps they'd like to make a little cash on the side by selling their programs as shareware. If you've always wondered how you could do what so many others have done, all you have to do is plug into Beginning Programming For Dummies, 2nd Edition, to find out how. Here's just a sample of the topics you'll find covered:

• Deciphering the mystery of the various programming languages
• Assembling and working with programming tools
• Getting inside a programming language: Liberty BASIC
• Programming basics: From variables, constants, and comments to strings, control statements, and loops
• Creating user interfaces for your programs
• Dealing with data structures
• Playing with object-oriented programming
• Debugging and optimizing your code
• Top Ten lists on the top programming careers and additional resources

So no matter what operating system platform you use – whether it's Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Palm OS, or Pocket PC – Beginning Programming For Dummies, 2nd Edition, can walk you through the basics of programming and get you well on your way to becoming a programming wizard!

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Qbasic is still the perfect language for beginning programmers because it is "English-like," which means it makes more sense than pt->(int)foo. As part of the ever-excellent "Dummies" series, this guide discusses general programming, programming with Qbasic, data structures, algorithms, and Internet programming. Recommended for all public libraries.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"...helps would-be programmers find their feet..." (PC Utilities, 20 February 2004) --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 2nd edition (March 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764508350
• ISBN-13: 978-0764508356
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #562,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I may be the only computer book author who hates computers. I love what computers can do but I hate the fact that they're so complicated, hard to use, unreliable, and downright troublesome. Besides writing computer books, I also enjoy performing stand-up comedy just to do something creative that involves human beings as opposed to machines.

I've been involved in computers, stand-up comedy, teaching, writing, and game designing for most of my life. In the computer industry, I've written over 50 computer books. Initially I focused primarily on Microsoft products such as Visual Basic and Microsoft Office. Later I switched focus to the Macintosh, iPhone, and iPad as I've watched the trend of computing shift from the PC/Microsoft dominated world to the mobile/Apple-influenced world. I've also shifted my programming focus from Delphi/Pascal and Visual Basic to Objective-C and LiveCode (a HyperCard clone) to create Macintosh and iPhone/iPad programs.

In the stand-up comedy world, I've been performing stand-up comedy for over 20 years, having appeared on A&E's "Evening at the Improv" and SiTV's "Latino Laugh Festival" along with appearing at the Riviera Comedy Club in Las Vegas. Currently I'm focusing my comedic writing skills towards occasional comedy performances but mostly towards screenwriting. You can read my screenwriting blog at The 15 Minute Movie Method (www.15minutemoviemethod.com). I've collected the best ideas from my screenwriting blog and condensed them into an e-book also called "The 15-Minute Movie Method," which is available as an e-book.

In 1992, I got my first cat and after reading a basic cat care book, I found that none of the advice offered had any basis in reality for dealing with the quirks and whims of a real cat. Based on that experience, I wrote a parody of a cat care book called "How to Live with a Cat (When You Really Don't Want To)." This book is now available as an e-book.

In the teaching world, I've taught at community colleges around San Diego as well as teaching at the University of Zimbabwe in Africa. Currently I teach an online Microsoft Word course through a company called Ed2Go.

In the writing world, I've written for several magazines including Computer Power User (CPU), Boardwatch Magazine, and Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities. I also write a weekly Macintosh column in an online computer magazine called ComputorEdge (www.computoredge.com). In addition, I've ghost written several books for real estate experts, stock day trading specialists, and network marketing millionaires. In 2008, I also helped San Diego State University's film department win their first student Emmy when they filmed my sitcom pilot, "Three of a Kind."

In the game designing world, I've created and published a game in 1983 called "Orbit War," which was published by Steve Jackson Games (the game is now out of print). The game simulated low orbital combat between satellites. I'm currently designing educational games for teaching various college level topics such as organic chemistry, calculus, and geometry.

I'm interested in always learning something new and combining my various skills and experience to stay ahead of changing technology and I enjoy writing about complex topics and making them easy to understand.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good value, great reading!, September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beginning Programming for Dummies (Paperback)

Yes, the humor and drawings can be corny and silly but overall this book is at least as good as Greg Perry's 'Teach yourself programming in 24 hours' (SAMS, 1998). As well as giving a solid grounding in venerable old QBASIC (hopefully then the reader can try their hand at VB, VBA, VbScript), Wallace's book presents bits of Java, Pascal, C/CC+ presented throughtout, and lots of useful websites. Definitely worth a look!

74 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An unfortunately flawed introduction., April 5, 2006

By 

RL "RL" (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Programming for Dummies (Paperback)

As a programmer, when I first read this book through I thought that it wasn't the best written of the Dummies books, but it was a reasonable introduction that gave a good overview of some of the basics. However, having seen people with no experience of programming at all try to work their way through this book, I've also noticed that the author has sometimes failed to really explain himself in the clear and thorough way that the Dummies books are so good at, and has lost sight of who the book should be aimed at - people with NO experience of programming at all.

My biggest gripe of all is with the use of variable names, on two counts. Firstly, he'll sometimes use variable names that simply won't make any sense - names that have absolutely nothing to do with what the variable is actually being used for within the code. While this doesn't cause a problem with programming, and certainly won't confuse an experienced programmer within such simple coding, it can completely throw people who haven't used a programming language before - it adds unnecessary confusion to code that's mainly intended for complete beginners.

It's also a bad introduction to naming conventions for anyone who'll write code for others to use, as people SHOULD try to make their choices of variable names make sense. It's a bad idea even if nobody else EVER reads it, because if you decide to come back to your code after a year, who knows if you'll still remember what "boing" was supposed to be?

The second issue I have is that he'll repeat the confusion for newcomers by sometimes naming things too similarly. Experienced programmers, again, won't have a problem with this; but for the newcomers who're trying to become familiar with the language, it can confuse them - this is made more likely by the fact that many will already be struggling to come to terms with the code they're working through. Having a variable called test$ and a routine called [test] may seem fine to experienced programmers, but when test$ is actually the value of a radio button, there are much plainer and easier names that the variable could have been given to help avoid confusion for the novice programmer. It could simply have been thought through better, and more consideration should have been given with regard to who this book was intended for.

When compared to some of the other Dummies texts, most of which people could work through from top to bottom without needing much or any assistance, this one falls short of the mark. Beyond just the confusion created by bad choices of names for variables and functions, some of the explanations are unclear - or leave some elements completely unexplained - leaving the unfamiliar programmer out of their depth, with no experience to call on to deduce what the commands or code may actually be doing.

In the end, I simply wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who is trying to learn programming from scratch on their own. With some help, it provides a place for programmers to build, but too often the people I've seen work through this have ended up FEELING like Dummies as they became baffled and lost off by the book's sometimes careless style.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful and fun, February 2, 2002

By 

Atheen M. Wilson "Atheen" (Mpls, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning Programming for Dummies (Paperback)

I have to deal with computers for my work at the hospital, which like many such institutions has become more and more computerized with every passing year. I would find the fact far less irritating if those who have charge of the process would stop tinkering with it long enough for me to use it with the "efficiency" that was originally intended, but such is never the case. To help me get a feeling for what the IMS people are doing so that I can better understand the entire process, I decided to take a mini-course on beginning programming. Wallace Wang's Beginning Programming for Dummies was the suggested course text, and although I started out convinced that I could never understand even a fraction of the information, I was pleasantly surprised. As advertised the fundamentals of programming presented in the text were understandable and doable. I was completely surprised to discover that my home computer already had a QBASIC program available on it and that I could use it to make simple programs. By following the book step by step, I was able to accomplish the tasks as designed and was amazed at the types of things the programs I wrote could do. I'm not sure that I have anything earth shaking to design for computers or that I'll be so taken with programming that I will give up surgical ICU to take it up, but I feel far more aware of computers and their inner workings now than I ever was and maybe a little more patient with them. Maybe.