How To Write Good Programs

Accessible guide to writing good, clear, correct code without stress, aimed at students on early programming courses.

Learning to program isn't just learning the details of a programming language: to become a good programmer you have to become expert at debugging, testing, writing clear code and generally unsticking yourself when you get stuck, while to do well in a programming course you have to learn to score highly in coursework and exams. Featuring tips, stories and explanations of key terms, this book teaches these skills explicitly. Examples in Python, Java and Haskell are included, helping you to gain transferable programming skills whichever language you are learning. Intended for students in Higher or Further Education studying early programming courses, it will help you succeed in, and get the most out of, your course, and support you in developing the software engineering habits that lead to good programs.

"Learning to program isn't just learning the details of a programming language: to become a good programmer you have to become expert at debugging, testing, writing clear code and generally unsticking yourself when you get stuck, while to do well in a programming course you have to learn to score highly in coursework and exams. Featuring tips, stories and explanations of key terms, this book teaches these skills explicitly. Examples in Python, Java and Haskell are included, helping you to gain transferable programming skills whichever language you are learning. Intended for students in Higher or Further Education studying early programming courses, it will help you succeed in, and get the most out of, your course and support you in developing the software engineering habits that lead to good programs"--

Classic on practical methods of optimizing programs: This book gives practical advice on improving the efficiency (optimizing) programs and the limits there of. While showing how to trade off speed for space or vice-versa, the author points out the limits that can be expected to gain. His list of techniques is a collection of practical approaches rather than theoretical possibilities. At 158 pages (not counting index) this book is eminently readable, accessable and useful. Clearly written and well organized this is a book to keep on your shelf for when a program needs improving. It is also a book to read before a program as a reminder not to make things complicated with optimization that aren't needed.

Despite using them every day, most software engineers know little about how programming languages are designed and implemented. For many, their only experience with that corner of computer science was a terrifying "compilers" class that they suffered through in undergrad and tried to blot from their memory as soon as they had scribbled their last NFA to DFA conversion on the final exam. That fearsome reputation belies a field that is rich with useful techniques and not so difficult as some of its practitioners might have you believe. A better understanding of how programming languages are built will make you a stronger software engineer and teach you concepts and data structures you'll use the rest of your coding days. You might even have fun. This book teaches you everything you need to know to implement a full-featured, efficient scripting language. You'll learn both high-level concepts around parsing and semantics and gritty details like bytecode representation and garbage collection. Your brain will light up with new ideas, and your hands will get dirty and calloused. Starting from main(), you will build a language that features rich syntax, dynamic typing, garbage collection, lexical scope, first-class functions, closures, classes, and inheritance. All packed into a few thousand lines of clean, fast code that you thoroughly understand because you wrote each one yourself.

If you're passionate about programming and want to get better at it, you've come to the right source. Code Craft author Pete Goodliffe presents a collection of useful techniques and approaches to the art and craft of programming that will help boost your career and your well-being. The book's standalone chapters span the range of a software developer's life--dealing with code, learning the trade, and improving performance--with no language or industry bias.

It's easier to learn how to program a computer than it has ever been before. Now everyone can learn to write programs for themselves - no previous experience is necessary. Chris Pine takes a thorough, but lighthearted approach that teaches you the fundamentals of computer programming, with a minimum of fuss or bother. Whether you are interested in a new hobby or a new career, this book is your doorway into the world of programming. Computers are everywhere, and being able to program them is more important than it has ever been. But since most books on programming are written for other programmers, it can be hard to break in. At least it used to be. Chris Pine will teach you how to program. You'll learn to use your computer better, to get it to do what you want it to do. Starting with small, simple one-line programs to calculate your age in seconds, you'll see how to write interactive programs, to use APIs to fetch live data from the internet, to rename your photos from your digital camera, and more. You'll learn the same technology used to drive modern dynamic websites and large, professional applications. Whether you are looking for a fun new hobby or are interested in entering the tech world as a professional, this book gives you a solid foundation in programming. Chris teaches the basics, but also shows you how to think like a programmer. You'll learn through tons of examples, and through programming challenges throughout the book. When you finish, you'll know how and where to learn more - you'll be on your way. What You Need: All you need to learn how to program is a computer (Windows, macOS, or Linux) and an internet connection. Chris Pine will lead you through setting set up with the software you will need to start writing programs of your own.

A completely revised edition, offering new design recipes for interactive programs and support for images as plain values, testing, event-driven programming, and even distributed programming. This introduction to programming places computer science at the core of a liberal arts education. Unlike other introductory books, it focuses on the program design process, presenting program design guidelines that show the reader how to analyze a problem statement, how to formulate concise goals, how to make up examples, how to develop an outline of the solution, how to finish the program, and how to test it. Because learning to design programs is about the study of principles and the acquisition of transferable skills, the text does not use an off-the-shelf industrial language but presents a tailor-made teaching language. For the same reason, it offers DrRacket, a programming environment for novices that supports playful, feedback-oriented learning. The environment grows with readers as they master the material in the book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of programming tasks. This second edition has been completely revised. While the book continues to teach a systematic approach to program design, the second edition introduces different design recipes for interactive programs with graphical interfaces and batch programs. It also enriches its design recipes for functions with numerous new hints. Finally, the teaching languages and their IDE now come with support for images as plain values, testing, event-driven programming, and even distributed programming.