What Was Your First Coding Book?(flatplanetmedia.com)
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What Was Your First Coding Book?
http://www.flatplanetmedia.com/what-was-your-first-coding-book.html
42 comments
The first one I finished was The Mythical Man Month. At the time, high school, I doubted if I was good enough for programming. So I started reading through Jeff Atwood's recommended books: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/02/recommended-reading...
It was not until I came across Jeff Atwood's fizz buzz post that I started to belief I could program.
The Mythical Man Month opened up my eyes to the fundamental difficulty of programming. In contrast to the typo based difficulty I was going through at the time.
Thus between Man Month and Jeff Atwood I determined that I was capable of programming and that it would be a challenge worth pursuing.
It was not until I came across Jeff Atwood's fizz buzz post that I started to belief I could program.
The Mythical Man Month opened up my eyes to the fundamental difficulty of programming. In contrast to the typo based difficulty I was going through at the time.
Thus between Man Month and Jeff Atwood I determined that I was capable of programming and that it would be a challenge worth pursuing.
Oh, man ... you're probably going to be sorry you asked, but here it is - my first coding book:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univOfIllinoisUrbana/illiac/ILL...
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univOfIllinoisUrbana/illiac/ILL...
ha, that's awesome!
PCBoard Programming Langage Manual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCBoard)
In the early 90s I ran a small BBS from my bedroom. I had used a bit of BASIC, but programming doors for my BBS was my first actual programming. I just got rid of the book recently. Because of this start, I got the bug to start coding for real. After this, I migrated to the more traditional C++, but I still have fond memories of writing extensions for my BBS. (Not that I had many visitors... it was more just for fun).
In the early 90s I ran a small BBS from my bedroom. I had used a bit of BASIC, but programming doors for my BBS was my first actual programming. I just got rid of the book recently. Because of this start, I got the bug to start coding for real. After this, I migrated to the more traditional C++, but I still have fond memories of writing extensions for my BBS. (Not that I had many visitors... it was more just for fun).
60 Problems You Can Solve in BASIC, or something close to that. It was orange. Google doesn't know about it.
My dad paid me a dollar for each one I solved. I think I did about 40 of them. Now that I think about it, that was also my first paid programming job.
Edit: Those giant Creative Computing books full of BASIC games might have actually been before that, but that 60 Problems one was the first that was explicitly about learning to code.
My dad paid me a dollar for each one I solved. I think I did about 40 of them. Now that I think about it, that was also my first paid programming job.
Edit: Those giant Creative Computing books full of BASIC games might have actually been before that, but that 60 Problems one was the first that was explicitly about learning to code.
My situation was a little different as I got serious about programming when I was 23, a year ago. The first real book I read was SICP (I had done learn python the hard way by Zed Shaw right before that, but it's more a set of exercises than a book); a friend who I met through HN strongly recommended it. It was awesome and I loved it.
EDIT: It's free online: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
EDIT: It's free online: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
One of those C64 books that goes from "how to plug in cables and switch the computer on" all the way to tweaking memory values with PEEK and POKE. I read that when I was 6 and loved it. Now, computer books and manuals have a tiny fraction of the scope, and yet they still considered too complicated for many full-grown adults.
Ahhh PEEK and POKE...yep.
My first book was an awesomely illustrated games programming book for BASIC that my dad gave me when I was around 7 or 8.
It had a number of games in each book, and they provided the entire source for the game in text on the pages that you could type into the computer and play the game. Each game had great illustrations and had an explanation of the game itself.
The next logical step for me was to start hacking away at the games, first changing variables to modify the game, and eventually writing my own simple games.
I'm a full time developer now and I owe a lot to my dad and to those books. I've been completely unable to find information on the books, and would love to get some copies of them now. If anyone knows the names of these books and / or where to get them, I would absolutely love to hear.
It had a number of games in each book, and they provided the entire source for the game in text on the pages that you could type into the computer and play the game. Each game had great illustrations and had an explanation of the game itself.
The next logical step for me was to start hacking away at the games, first changing variables to modify the game, and eventually writing my own simple games.
I'm a full time developer now and I owe a lot to my dad and to those books. I've been completely unable to find information on the books, and would love to get some copies of them now. If anyone knows the names of these books and / or where to get them, I would absolutely love to hear.
Not strictly a book, but this made something "click" for me back in the early days: http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/oop/oop1.htm
Sadly the author passed away in 1999 -- when he was younger than I am now & just a few years after I first read his "book". IIRC his parents were still trying to get the book published for a while.
Looks like his family maintains a web site in his memory: http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/
Sadly the author passed away in 1999 -- when he was younger than I am now & just a few years after I first read his "book". IIRC his parents were still trying to get the book published for a while.
Looks like his family maintains a web site in his memory: http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/
My first programming book was about GW-BASIC, it was red and very thick. But it was the second book that I bought that was the book that made me want to become a programmer:
Mastering Turbo Assembler by Tom Swan
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Turbo-Assembler-Tom-Swan/dp/...
My copy actually looks very similar to the one on Amazon. :)
Mastering Turbo Assembler by Tom Swan
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Turbo-Assembler-Tom-Swan/dp/...
My copy actually looks very similar to the one on Amazon. :)
My first coding book was c++ in 21days (HAH!). It did cover the basics pretty well but it took me a long time before the abstraction of objects really sunk in and templates I don't think we're especially well covered.
I probably bit off more than I could chew at the time, but I stuck with it because I was so hellbent on game programming. I didn't end up in game dev, but I think I became a better developer after spending so much time with a low level language.
I probably bit off more than I could chew at the time, but I stuck with it because I was so hellbent on game programming. I didn't end up in game dev, but I think I became a better developer after spending so much time with a low level language.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Awesome-Game-Creation-Programming-Re...
Learned a click-based "programming" method called The Games Factory through this book when I was 11 I think. Ever since then I've been hooked on tech/programming.
Learned a click-based "programming" method called The Games Factory through this book when I was 11 I think. Ever since then I've been hooked on tech/programming.
Does HTML/CSS count? If so, then mine was "Head First (X)HTML and CSS". It was an awesome book that really managed to get me excited about the subject. That ended up being my gateway into JS, PHP, Python, etc.
And yes, that was relatively recently (only about 4-5 years ago), which dramatically reduces the cool/nostalgia factor there.
And yes, that was relatively recently (only about 4-5 years ago), which dramatically reduces the cool/nostalgia factor there.
I really like the head first books...I've got a couple of them too.
“Peter Norton’s Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC”, a handmedown or yard sale find or something. It inspired an early interest in OS development and a few mid-teen years of booting My Very Own OS off a floppy on my middle school’s computers. Compilers and games have since seduced me back into userland, though.
Structured BASIC by Clark and Drum. Copyright 1983. It's still in print! I was on the TI-99>C64>Amiga>IBM PC trajectory. http://c2.bibtopia.com/h/662/306/73306662.0.m.jpg
You should see this thing, dog-eared, warn out...but still kicking! Even though it's not very useful anymore, I wouldn't sell this book for anything in the world lol
Do you remember your first programming book, or have a particular favorite?
Do you remember your first programming book, or have a particular favorite?
Tricks Of The MS-DOS Masters. I remember the guy at the computer store telling me not to bother because "in ten years we'll be speaking regular english to computers.". Fantastic book though. Glad I didn't take his advice.
"Your Atari Computer"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25457150/Your-Atari-Computer-A-Gui...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25457150/Your-Atari-Computer-A-Gui...
I use to have a subscription to 3-2-1 Contact as a kid. The had these short one or two line programs in the back. I think there was an Apple magazine called Nibbles that had something similar.
Teach yourself Visual Basic in 24 hours.
Cover: http://www.treasuretess.co.uk/images/Sams_VB5.jpg
Cover: http://www.treasuretess.co.uk/images/Sams_VB5.jpg
I always found those "in 24 hours" books to be amusing in that there was no way in hell you were going to work through a book that size in 24 hours
Long time ago, SAMS books were one of the best out there (lack of competition).
Apple ][ BASIC Programming Manual. The green spiral-bound one with the groovy Atari George Opperman style cover. Integer BASIC of course. AppleSoft BASIC hadn't come out yet.
Hmm, this is currently down: Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 1310720) (tried to allocate 19456 bytes) in /home/jps/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 597
yeah, server crashed under the weight of hackernews...working with tech to try to patch up a solution :-(
EDIT: Upgraded my hosting plan a couple notches and tech support is monitoring memory usage. Hopefully that takes care of things...
EDIT: Upgraded my hosting plan a couple notches and tech support is monitoring memory usage. Hopefully that takes care of things...
It wasn't a book, but I clearly remember sitting around with my dad and typing in games from magazines (they would just list the source code on a couple pages).
OH YEAH! I did that too! Oh man I forgot about those magazines...what where they called..."Ahoy" Magazine or something like that for the old Commodore 64 mags...yeah yeah :-P
We had an Apple IIe so it probably wasn't Ahoy, 'BitPower' or something goofy.
I remember my grandmother worked in a comic book factory and she used to swipe a couple different computer magazines for me that they printed there...loved those things!
Mine was actually similar: http://www.lemon64.com/manual/
(except it was the dead tree edition)
(except it was the dead tree edition)
The Macintosh C Programming Primer. It was fantastic: I highly recommend it if, by some strange chance, you have occasion to program System 7.
Java: The Complete Reference, 96 edition
Finished this book twice before coding a single line of java.
Finished this book twice before coding a single line of java.
TRS-80 basic manual. That sucker's looong gone.
itty bitty bytes of space for the commodore 64.
I remember to this day that graphic programs using sprites didn't worked for me (must have been some print error in manual, I've tried like 100 times to run that program - it was supposed to draw baloon, but it just did nothing).
Then I got huge red book "Mikrokomputery" by Herwig Feichtinger from my father. It had schematics and opcodes for Z80 and 6502, listings of commands with short explanation for a dozen variants of basic, pascal, forth and c, commands for CP\M and DOS, and some nice algorithms (drawing circle pixel by pixel, questions and answers program in basic using "learning" decision tree, some utilities to format a disk, etc). And it was in Polish (translated from German I think), so this was the first programming book I could understand.