Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#31

Post by hgsgm » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

checkio.com for increasing challenges in Python or JS.

But also pretty much every book does that.

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#32

Post by dartharva » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

I don't know why jtimiclat's comment recommending Al Sweigart's books got downvoted and faded out, they are indeed quite good for beginners wanting to get their hands dirty with programming instead of cramming it in an academic way.

Not to mention they're all freely available and give excellent value for both time and money: https://inventwithpython.com/

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#33

Post by nesarkvechnep » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

newsoul wrote: post #23

larve wrote: post #21

Peter norvig’s paradigms of artificial intelligence programming, despite its age, is a delight. https://norvig.github.io/paip-lisp/#/

But is that suitable for a beginner?

Yes, it is. It’s not about machine learning, neural networks but the more approachable AI of the 80s.

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#34

Post by ajoseps » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

This book is still in progress but I've gone through some of the chapters and have enjoyed it. Rust from the Ground Up: https://leanpub.com/rust-from-the-ground-up

I was looking for a book that had offline projects I can work on while on flights, and this book focuses on rebuilding linux utilities using rust. The other nice part is that you get a better understanding of linux internals.

I believe the author is also responsive on the rust subreddit.

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#35

Post by Zhyl » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

kennyfrc wrote: post #9

There’s quite a few: - Zed Shaw’s Learn More Python the Hard Way[1] - Brian Hogan’s Exercises for Programmers (best for beginners or for learning a new language)[2] - Hal Fulton’s The Ruby Way[3] - Chris Ferdinandi’s Vanilla JS Academy[4] - Marc-Andre Cournoyer’s Great Code Club (it’s old, and the community doesn’t exist anymore, but i think he still maintains it)[5] - A few python books from No Starch Press (notably…

Specifically "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" is my favourite Al Sweigart book.

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#36

Post by lazyant » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

kennyfrc wrote: post #9

There’s quite a few: - Zed Shaw’s Learn More Python the Hard Way[1] - Brian Hogan’s Exercises for Programmers (best for beginners or for learning a new language)[2] - Hal Fulton’s The Ruby Way[3] - Chris Ferdinandi’s Vanilla JS Academy[4] - Marc-Andre Cournoyer’s Great Code Club (it’s old, and the community doesn’t exist anymore, but i think he still maintains it)[5] - A few python books from No Starch Press (notably…

> - A few python books from No Starch Press (notably those authored by Al Sweigart)

Yes for example https://nostarch.com/inventwithpython and https://nostarch.com/big-book-small-python-projects

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#37

Post by kennyfrc » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

7speter wrote: post #24

kennyfrc wrote: post #9

There’s quite a few: - Zed Shaw’s Learn More Python the Hard Way[1] - Brian Hogan’s Exercises for Programmers (best for beginners or for learning a new language)[2] - Hal Fulton’s The Ruby Way[3] - Chris Ferdinandi’s Vanilla JS Academy[4] - Marc-Andre Cournoyer’s Great Code Club (it’s old, and the community doesn’t exist anymore, but i think he still maintains it)[5] - A few python books from No Starch Press (notably…

> and from reading open source code. Do you just search for projects in the language your using on github?

Yes, and I would typically search for simple projects using keywords such as “micro”, “small”, “tiny”, or “pico”.

I would then try to re-implement the “getting started” code in the readme from scratch, like a little programming puzzle. If I can’t figure it out, I‘ll add in some debugger breakpoints, inspect the stack trace to understand how it works, then code the needed methods / classes as I go.

If you’re a ruby programmer, soveran’s work in github can be read in a day or two. I specifically like cuba (micro webframework) and mote (microtemplate).

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#38

Post by globalise83 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

nesarkvechnep wrote: post #33

newsoul wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that suitable for a beginner?

Yes, it is. It’s not about machine learning, neural networks but the more approachable AI of the 80s.

Haven't tried his, but can GPT3 write code that results in 1980s style AI?

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#39

Post by tmtvl » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation(https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/) has you build a number of small applications, like a substitution decipher application, a plotting function, and more, which it calls "keyboard exercises".

Re: Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?

#40

Post by tjpnz » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

MUD Game Programming. Not sure how easy obtaining a copy would be in 2023 but it has two projects which I recall being a lot of fun. I never did build a successful MUD but did learn a fair amount about network programming.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/927128.Mud_Game_Progr...