| How to Computer Program Posted: After reading the book and the existing reviews, I can only think the author and most of the existing reviewers really have little or no idea what computer programming is all about.
I don't usually write negative reviews, but just couldn't let this one go.
With a title of "How to computer program" I should have known there would be issues, because I can't imagine anyone that actually knows how, that would state it quite that way. More correctly, it should be something more like "How to learn computer programming" or "How to program computers". Either way, it doesn't matter, because the book doesn't actually provide any real information about how to learn computer programming. Suggesting that someone play with open source applications isn't how to learn to program. There are some fundamental concepts that must be learned first, and knowing the particular syntax rules for the language are important before poking about. Starting out by poking at existing open source applications will more likely discourage a person from learning about programming than to encourage them to learn.
Yes, there are some general statements about various languages and perhaps a bit about the need for programmers, but it reads like a loosely collected series of short articles, or a bunch of first paragraphs spun from Wikipedia. The author throws out a list of words that will have absolutely no meaning for a non-programmer, does nothing to explain the descriptions of each language provided, or why the differences may be significant. For example, there is no information provided about the difference between an interpreted scripting language and a compiled language, nor what any of the other buzzwords mean. The concept of a compiler wasn't even brought up....
It was also somewhat repetitive, as about half of the information in Chapter 5 "The 10 programming languages you should learn right now" (PHP, C#, Ajax, JavaScript, Perl, C, ruby, Java, Python, VB.net) was essentially repeated in Chapter 10 "The most popular programming languages to learn" (C, Java, PHP, Javascript).
I seriously doubt the author has the slightest idea how to program in any of the languages he suggests. The book has numerous conceptual errors. Making a sweeping statement like "Java is one of the fastest growing languages and almost every programming job will require that a person know how to use it." is just wrong. I know a bunch of professional programmers that make a nice living without using Java at all, and can't recall the last time I needed to use it, personally or professionally. Which language is used for a programming job is dependent on several factors, not the least of which is what is the most appropriate for the application, or the tools available for the target platform.
If you want a really quick read without any substantive information, this book may be your cup of tea, but I wouldn't expect anyone even slightly interested in programming to get much out of it.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars was because the author tried, and he had a reasonable set of topics. Unfortunately, there wasn't more than a sentence or two about any topic. With a different title and some real information beyond a sentence or two for each topic, it could be turned into a pretty decent book. However, if expanded, it needs to be proofread by someone that knows computer programming to avoid the sort of problems mentioned above. |
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