Customer Reviews

Beginning Programming For Dummies

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

Here's the deal with this book: it's for beginners, hence the title. A lot of reviewers knocked it down a bit because it did not use a "real-world" language like C++ or Java. There is a reason for that...those languages are much more cryptic and tougher to learn, you can get caught-up in just learning the syntax (among many other things) instead of basic programming logic and concepts. A beginners guide should not bog one down with frustration.

The language that is used in this book is LibertyBASIC, which is similar to QBASIC, RealBASIC and other versions and just as easy to learn. I feel that it's necessary to mention here that the BASIC language is the most widely known programming language in the world. Microsoft (where I happen to work) created it's early software in BASIC and is currently still using it's own flavor of the language (Visual BASIC) in-house. Take a look at any college computer science or programming curiculum and you will notice that almost every one of them starts off by teaching BASIC (usually Visual Basic, which is even easier in my opinion). The reason, there again, is because it's simple to grasp and to learn important concepts early-on.

It is true that LibertyBASIC specifically is not used widely in the "real world", but again that is NOT the point of this book. Instead, time is spent on concepts relevant to programming and why they are important. Boolean expressions, arrays, looping statements such as IF/THEN/ELSE and WHILE/WEND and subroutines (among other topics essential to programming basics) are all touched upon here. The point, again, is an INTRODUCTION. LibertyBASIC allows you to quickly get up and running with simple programs and to practice these central concepts without getting confused and frustrated.

The book also touches on other programming languages that exist such as Perl, Python, Ruby, C++, Java and others. It spends a good deal of time giving a background and primer on what these languages try to accomplish and their popular uses. I think this book is ideal for people who are interested in programming but don't know where to start and for those who MIGHT be interested but aren't sure and need an overview of what they will be getting themselves into.

From here, dive into other programming books with more centralized topics or higher-level languages. If this book really piques your curiosity and you decide to get into programming full-time, my personal recommendation is to enroll in a local community college and take C++, C# or Java courses. I think the learning is faster and it helps to have instructor interaction in case something goes awry in your learning.

I hope this helps, and good luck!!!!

I would recommmed this book for all beginners, although I would suggest reading Grey Perry's "Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming" first. Dunderhead's like me need things explained in very simple terms and this book will do the job. I will say one thing Mr Wang's has a cynical sense of humor, but he does explain things well.

I have purchased maybe half a dozen "Dummies" books and have been very happy with them. This one I am not happy with. Beware, the book says that the included CD is compatible with the XP operating system, but it is not. I contacted the company about it and they suggested I download Liberty Basic from their website, for an extra $30. No thanks. That's one of the reasons I bought the book - for a working CD. They ought to either adjust the disk so it is compatible, or not claim that it is.

I have been using this book for help when I have been unable to pick up the concept or "nuts & bolts" of using a Qbasic command and have never been disapointed with Mr. Wang's explaination. As an adjunct to the textbook we are using in my Qbasic programming class this book has been a great help. Examples in the book are practical and concise. When the programming problem revolves around a,b & c Wang gives examples using a,b & c not x,y & z as my other textbook does. Furthermore, the chapters at the beginning and end of the book have helped me decide what other languages will be most beneficial for me to learn as I plan my future education. Connections to professional associations,practical career advise, this book has much more than just good programming instruction. I think this book does a great job of teaching Qbasic by itself but as an additional reference it has been invaluable to me.

I actually didn't know anything about programming when I bought this book. I started reading it and I liked it because it explains things in very simple terms, but then I came across with another book called Beginning Programming written by Adrian and Kathie Kingsley-Hughes and I started comparing them and I started to see why this book by Wallace Wang doesn't deserve five stars. First the book is written using a programming language that while is simple enough to learn it doesn't have too many applications in the real world plus liberty basic cost $30. Even though the book brought a CD with an old version of liberty basic I was not able to run it in my computer. So if I wanted to really learn this language I needed to buy the newer version of Liberty Basic. The book by Kingsley-Hughes is quite simple too and it explains most terms using languages that are more useful in the real world like JavaScript and C++. The Dummies series have other books that are better than this one and they teach real world languages.

I had a hard time figuring out how to rate this book. It does what it promises you it will do, but I think there are better way to break into programming than with this.

This book claims it will teach you programming concepts in an easy way, and it does. But it also supports this mentality that C/C++ is too complicated for a begginner, which I disagree with.

Many programmers started by learning C++, including myself ("C++ Primer Plus" is a good book for beginners). C++ is a harder language to learn and it would probably be easier and faster to learn if you learned something like LibertyBASIC first, but you won't waste your time learning a beginner's language which you'll probably never use again. Plus a LibertyBASIC compiler costs $30 but you can get a C++ compiler for free (Dev-C++, google it).

There's also other easy languages like Python (try "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz and David Ascher) which are geared for beginners but are widely used in the professional world, and are also free.

If you want to learn programming concepts with an easy language and don't wanna have to pay, try Python, and if you want to get started quickly and jump right into professional programming (which isn't as hard as you think), learn C++. I'll give this book a 3 because it does what it promises, but I think there are better places to start programming.

I highly recommend Wallace Wang's Beginning Programming for Dummies to anyone looking to learn programming for the first time. I'm a technical writer who is terrible at math and not very bright in general. Fortunately, as Mr. Wang assures me in the first chapter, you don't have to be a math genius to be a good programmer. You just have to be curious and willing to spend a lot of time practicing. One thing that sets Dummies books apart is their ability to make the boring part of a subject (its dullness or seeming difficulty is why you need the book in the first place) seem fun. Wang employs his extensive gifts as a comedian to make memorizing terms like "REM," "CLS," and "FOR...NEXT" feel deceptively fun. After finishing this book (it took about a month of daily to semi-daily study to digest), I have a good grasp of programming in general, and QBASIC in particular. I'm making my own QBASIC program to master the language (it's a psychologist who asks you questions and then belittles you). And, because QBASIC comes free with every PC, you don't have to buy anything extra to learn it. Once I master QBASIC, I'll easily be able to move on to Visual Basic, and then maybe dabble in some C, Java, and HTML/XML.