Programming Books for Non-Programmers?

[e-mail] asks: "Any programmer who's used an online programming resource or community has had the frustration of answering programming questions for non-programmers. This is especially true with web-centric technologies like Perl and PHP. I've always wondered where to point these newest of the new, and O'Reilly's latest Ask Tim article addresses this. Unfortunately, Tim suggests picking up an ORA book on ActionScript, which seems a bit too specific. Are there any good introductions to the concepts of programming? And is any such book necessarily tied to a language?"

Manning is great!

[Dancin_Santa]

Elements of Programming with Perl [amazon.com] was a big hit over at CLPM when it came out. It doesn't assume the programmer has any programming experience coming in. It is clear, concise, and aimed directly at the market you're interested in.

Dancin Santa

Practical C++ Programming (O'Reilly & Associat

[ez76]

I feel any practical introduction to programming needs to be grounded in some example language. What beginners need least is theory without reinforcing example.

That being said, O'Reilly's Practical C++ Programming [oreilly.com] has been a long-standing favorite recommendation of mine.

TAOCP? Nah

[MrBlack]

Although I haven't read it, I've heard this book on python (Learn to Program Using Python [awl.com]) is useful. It is an expanded version of this web tutorial [crosswinds.net]. Although it's hard to see things from a newbie perspecitve when you've been programming for a while, python does have a reputation for being easy to learn. The syntax is nice and clean, not too verbose, and the language is coherent and well designed. And the best thing is you don't have to throw it away when you graduate from newbiehood. Save the Knuths for later on in their programming journey.

Re:TAOCP? Nah

[pamri]

htdp.org [htdp.org] (how to do programming) is an excellent guide put by MIT. It is aimed at high school students, but is a very good guide for non-programmers. It uses Dr.scheme, a special version of scheme prepared bye MIT & is also available for all platforms. And also, it's aim ( as speciefied on the site) is to teach fundamentals, you can use anywhere & it does acheive it. And it's free too.

Re:TAOCP? Nah

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to seriously question the idea of using scheme to teach programming to somebody who wants to throw some PHP into their webpage. Scheme may be a great language for teaching things to CS majors, but the language structure is quite a bit different than the languages they plan on working with. We're not talking about 1st year CS students who need a solid grounding in theory, but Joe Sixpack who would like to have a little practical knowledge of coding.

Learning Python would be ideally suited for you...

[_w00d_]

I know you are looking for something not language specific to explain programming concepts but I'm not aware of a book that doesn't use a specific language to give examples of its concepts. Therefore, I'd like to offer when I feel is the next best thing for a new programmer. I read through Learning Python [amazon.com] a few months ago and I found it to be a very easy-reading tutorial for the Python programming language, which is simple to learn in itself. The Python tutorial [python.org] does a decent job of explaining the features and syntax of Python but it may be a little too raw for nonprogrammers. The book on the other hand does a thorough job of explaining the language. Many people agree that Python is an ideal first language because it keeps things simple and teaches the basics of OOP well. I sort of wish I had started out with Python as my first language instead of learning C++, as learning C++ and other more advanced/complicated languages would have been much easier to grasp the first time around. Your mileage may vary.

Gödel, Escher, Bach

[ebbe11]

by Douglas Hofstadter is the one I recommend if they want to know about the concepts and logic that lies behind programming.

If they want to start programming on their own, I'd probably suggest Python or soemthing like that.

Karel the Robot

[BobGregg]

A perennial favorite, "Karel the Robot [amazon.com]: A Gentle Introduction to to the Art of Programming" is a very good choice. It's the first real book on programming I read 20 years ago, and it's just as entertaining today.

Beginning Programming Books

[hobbestcat]

"Who's afraid of C++" (by Steve Heller, AP Professional Press) is a good starting book. It assumes no knowledge of programming. It reads as a discussion between student and teacher and is based on a real teacher-student interaction.

The Little Schemer

[hgayosso]

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~matthias/TLS/ [rice.edu]
http://www.schemers.com/scm_bks.html [schemers.com]
"The Little Schemer" introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra-things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme and a menu of interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas.