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Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

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Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#41

Post by gaius »

100k wrote: post #21

Part of this stems from a pre-internet mentality. "Of course I need a full function reference! Where else would I find it?" Now you just Google it. A thinner book can leave the reference to the search engines, but for some reason this older way has become entrenched.

Yes, but that attitude is not dead: how many projects have you come across where the only documentation is the JavaDoc or equivalent? It allows someone to tick the box that yes the documentation is done, with minimal effort, but it's not that useful to the next programmer, who really needs sample code, oh, I get this from that, and this from there, then I feed them both to the function...

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#42

Post by dagw »

notsosmart wrote: post #10

So aside from K&R, what are some of the best small books?

Although probably outdated by now, I learnt Java from a book called "Java a Practical Guide for Programmers" by Sikora. When most Java books weighed in at a 1000 pages it was incredibly refreshing to find one that was 170 pages and assumed you already knew how to program.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#43

Post by tehjones »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #37

I'd been meaning to pick up a new language, and a few weeks ago I pared down my list of choices to two languages: Scala and Go. Then I went looking for "official" tutorials/references. For Scala I found Scala by Example , a 145 page PDF that comes with the Scala docs. For Go, I found the Go tutorial -- a very short tutorial with a bunch of examples. I picked Go because, seriously, I don't have time to read 145 pages…

The first chapter of K&R is a tutorial introduction, it explains the entire workings of the C language for someone familiar to programming in a small number of pages(It misses pointers, but it covers a lot).

Every book on a language needs this. The best I have seen was in a python book where the author stopped and told the reader enough had been learnt to write any program. The closet to the K&R model I have seen is with the Big Nerd Ranch books.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#44

Post by msie »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #37

I'd been meaning to pick up a new language, and a few weeks ago I pared down my list of choices to two languages: Scala and Go. Then I went looking for "official" tutorials/references. For Scala I found Scala by Example , a 145 page PDF that comes with the Scala docs. For Go, I found the Go tutorial -- a very short tutorial with a bunch of examples. I picked Go because, seriously, I don't have time to read 145 pages…

Every time I try to learn Scala I get the feeling that it's too big.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#45

Post by tehjones »

loy22 wrote: post #16
peterb wrote: post #2

I agree 100%. K&R is the standard all authors should strive for. The length of these books is also our fault. Bigger books sell better. I hope there is a backlash brewing. K&R, Little Schemer, Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, were all great small books.

I tried to learn programming but I was discouraged by the utter lack of pedagogy in the books I've picked so far. The author pretty much nailed it. I even tried Land of Lisp only because it was supposed to be fun, but unfortunately it used this horrible and widespread format where the author writes all the code for you and proceeds to an explanation. There is no creation (or creative problem solving) ! And creation i…

Personally I cannot learn from a book where I am just given concepts and supposed to find a solution. I find reading other code to be a much better learning method.

I have seen most students prefer to presented with a whole working program and then expand on it in the challenges the book provides. The author of this article was expressing a desire for shorter books that give full code listings rather than code snippets and challenges that you seem to prefer.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#47

Post by CWuestefeld »

zyfo wrote: post #12

Too bad authors get paid by publishers by the number of pages, and publishers push the books to education, where the attention economy takes care of the rest. Good thing that programmers are more often self-learned, which makes the problem relatively benign compared to say, economics books.

Too bad authors get paid by publishers by the number of pages

This is not true. Authors get paid by the number of books sold, period. For my book we had an approximate target length, but that was a precondition. Past that gate, all we saw was $x/copy.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#49

Post by InclinedPlane »

Rickasaurus wrote: post #48

I've been begging publishers to let me have a go at a ~100 page F# tutorial book, but they've told me again and again that books without a wide enough profile on the shelf just won't sell. It's sad really. I hope ePublishing fixes this.

It's not worth the trouble to go through a publisher anymore. You're not going to make any money on a tech book no matter how popular it is. The smart move in the modern age is to work on the book in the open with a blog and then self publish an ebook. If you like you can even sell it or ask for donations.

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#50

Post by sigzero »

ubasu wrote: post #32
edw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_The Scheme Programming Language_ by Kent Dybvig is also very good. _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ is my preferred "how to think in Scheme" book. I would recommend against _How to Design Programs_, which is entirely too pandering and focused on imperative programming for my tastes. http://www.scheme.com/tspl3/

It seems there's a fourth edition: http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/ Also, Wikipedia says that "Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days" is outdated in some parts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_Yourself_Scheme_in_Fixnum...

TSPL4 covers RSR6 which didn't go over very well with the community. TSPL3 is probably the better bet there.
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