A Computer Science Tapestry [Paperback]

Astrachan; Owen L. (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 678 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072322039
• ISBN-13: 978-0072322033
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,412,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many reviewers might be missing the point, February 4, 2001

By 

Martin Dulberg (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Computer Science Tapestry (Paperback)

This book is a textbook, not a reference book. Text books teach, reference books provide convenient lookup. As a teacher of large programming classes, I can appreciate the authors approach to teaching programming. Students with no background do MUCH better with a black box approach to functions. Use it first then learn how to make it yourself is a far better approach than getting students lost in all of the details no matter how important the details are. There's plenty of time later in the semester (and subsequent courses) to master the details. For most students, the CS1 course is NOT about becoming a programmer, it's about learning analytical problem solving skills. The book does an excellent job of addressing the pedegogical concerns of the CS1 course. One may of course have quibbles with the order that things are presented of course. I personally prefer to introduce functions before classes. But this is a religious issue more than anything else. There are many different ways to do things that all lead to a successful conclusion.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is what distinguishes learners from procrastinators, May 14, 2007

By 

Petros P. Rigas (Thailand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Computer Science Tapestry: Exploring Computer Science with C++ (Paperback)

I have taught programming for almost 10 years now. I have used many books which aim to teach students the basics of many programming languages - take the Deitel 'How to Program' series for example. The author's approach in explaining the basics of programming using an object oriented approach is fully-fledged (please read its preface before making any unnecessary comments). Students learn to read and understand class descriptions and implementations. After exposure to many classes in the first couple of chapters, students learn to design their own simple classes and work with them from scratch. The author's discussion of recursion, inheritance and polymorphism is also classical. After teaching an introductory class with this book, my students have always found the move to Java much easier.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From The Perspective of The Author's Student, January 13, 2000

By 

Adam Mercer (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Computer Science Tapestry (Paperback)

When I first signed up for professor Astrachan's class of Computer Programming for beginners, I thought to myself: "this guy must think he is some kind of genius or somehting... writing our textbook is just too much." Later I found out that Professor Astrachan really knows his computer science, and this fact is definately reflected in his work on A Computer Science Tapestry. The Tapestry, as we now all call it, has proven to be one of the most valuable books in my career of computer programming. I have spent time refrencing it, studying it, and skimming it's pages just before a project to be sure I knew exactly what I needed to know to make the computer code work for me. Professor Astrachan makes coding in C++ easy to grasp in a way that many professors could only wish for. This Computer Science Tapestry is what C++ is based upon, and what C++ could be built upon.