Customer Reviews

How Computer Programming Works (Technology in Action Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book explains the "magic" of computer programming as clearly as can be done. Outstanding use of graphics to illustrate difficult concepts. Concrete analogies to "real world" objects make the virtual world of programming much easier to wrap your mind around.

Outstanding introduction for middle-school, high school, even beginning college level students. Very clearly written, not a lot of unnecessary words - just the right level of explanation to get you thinking in the right direction and to see what the graphics are illustrating. My 13-year old loved it, and finally understands a bit more of what his Dad does all day. I've been doing this for 15 years -- and even I got a better grasp of some things.

Highly recommended.

A good book does not need to be complex. This one does a great job. You could read this book during one hour and learn more than in one semester of COS111. It is so simple. Comcepts are the most important thing to learn. They give meaning to programing. Without concepts, programing becomes meaningless.

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.

"How Computer Programming Works" offers a useful compilation of major Computer Science topics. The artwork, spread liberally though this book, is generally quite useful and offers some unique insights into certain topics, but is at times overdone.

Daniel Appleman has done a good job of condensing many of the major topical areas and themes in the field of Computer Science in fewer than 250 pages.

For anyone with more than a peripheral knowledge of Computer Science and computing in general, but with a lack of formal Computer Science education or training, this is a book worth reading. It can serve as a launching point for more in-depth and detailed coverage of the topics addressed in the book.

I recommend this book...especially to the reader segment mentioned above.

I bought this book for a newphew in high school interested in computer programming. It is a good introduction with excellent diagrams and many examples, mostly in Visual Basic. Even an experienced programmer would enjoy the book.

I bought this book based on the reviews. It was for my 11-year old son who is a whiz working with computers and wants to learn more so he can eventually start programming. I have been writing software for 20 years and find it difficult to make my knowledge and understanding relevant to someone so young. I don't want to dash his enthusiasm with too much technical jargon, yet he should learn enough to get curious and start tinkering with confidence.

This book was not relevant for him. He's a pretty smart kid for 11, but the references in this book are for adults. It will bore a kid under 18.

On the other hand, this book will probably be pretty good for an adult wanting to learn how computers work.

I don't want to blame the writer since he never said this book was written for kids, but it's tough to rate it higher since the book now sits on the shelf.

By the way, if you've gotten this far in this review, then you might know or have a youngster (isn't that an old-foggey word?) who wants to know more about computers. When kids have fun learning, they stay interested. With this in mind, a fun book to learn about computers is, surprisingly, "Head First HTML" by Elizabeth and Eric Freeman. By taking a fun approach to learning how to make web pages kids are introduced to programming.

It's also an enjoyable book for adults.

I bought this book and felt disappointed.

I think it's a wrong decision of me not carefully looking into the index portion to check my expectation. It is also a result from Amazon side, only a portion of chapter one, not revealing enough examples for readers to judge.

It's a general introduction of some basic "ideas" about programming. It focuses on one idea per chapter. The illustrations are indeed very good to demonstrate those ideas. The whole book is like a delighted lemon juice, with very thin content.

But, I feel the whole book best serves the teens as an introduction book about programming. If an amateur has a clear intention to head into the world of computer software, this is not a good entry book. He'd better consider other books and don't waste time on this one. This is just suitable for those whose time is free and ease.

By the way, I feel not worthy to return this book because of the shipping fee. So, I decided to keep it for my son to minimize the waste.

Not when the illustrations are as poorly drawn and pointless as these. eg people staring at computers, sweeping arrows with colored blends, or pointing hands (proving, yes they are hard to draw!). I can however follow the reasoning.

This is yet another programmer who has trouble explaining the jargon but has noticed books that do a good job of being user friendly, have pictures. I found this book to be just like those inane PowerPoint presentations that middle executives think expresses the right side of their brain. A right side that seems to be made of cheap PC clip art.

It doesn't help every time the book gets to a core idea, that it glosses over it as if it is obvious, without explaining the detail. Nor that on top of the meaningless graphics, the book is full of DTP blunders that obviously nobody has checked. Such as text set in fonts with mismatching encodings, resulting in strange accented characters being substituted for whatever the author intended.

Why do programmers have such difficulty producing clear, sequential, logical and carefully crafted expression, that has been checked for errors?

I thought that was their job.

The other reviewers here that reference their 13 year olds enjoying this book are absolutely right. This book is for 13 year olds. As a 25 year old trying to wrap his mind around programming, it leaves much to be desired.

If all you want is a gloss-over for someone who has no intention to continue in the field of programming, but just wants a non-programmers understanding of programming, this book is for you. If you want something you can take with you on a journey into real programming, you will have to really dig deep to distill the few morsels of theory offered here. In fact I had to reread most paragraphs dozens of times in order to find the underlying concept he was trying to teach; to find something that would still be useful to me after finishing the book.

Bottomline: A waste of time if you are out of high school and attempting to truly learn something about programming. Take a few minutes to skim thru the pictures at your local bookstore, then go buy a real programming book.