Computer Programming for Beginners: Fundamentals of Programming Terms and Concepts

The author communicates the mindset behind programming, laying the groundwork that enables one to learn a language toward a goal with confidence that they'll be using each piece of information along the way.It's hard to learn something that feels completely irrelevant; this book helps alleviate that problem by using examples of how and where something might be used across a variety of programming languages.I believe it's a great tour across programming, and has helped me feel much more confident in what I've learned from other books, tutorials, and projects, as well as what to begin to learn in the future. If only I came across this book when I first began learning programming!

This is very a good introductory book that isn't specific to one particular language, however, it does give examples in a couple of the more popular languages (i.e. Java and C#). There are a few typos throughout the book, but it's more about the information that's inside than just a few misspelled words or grammatical errors. I've done some programming before, but I always wanted a better understanding of what it was that I was doing, and most of the people who I learned from weren't able to clearly explain what exactly I was doing. Nathan Clark does a very good job of explaining many of the things I had been struggling with for years. I won't say it's perfect, and it may not be for everyone, but for me, it works.

One star docked due to simple text errors.I am looking for material to help teach older kids programming (beyond scratch) and this book is definitely more for adults. That said, there’s nothing I actually don’t like: it’s concise so that it is quite thorough in a neat 190 pages.To be truly “for beginners”, probably want to keep other basic references handy.

I think the book has some good information, but it's filled in too much with simple, basic things that everyone could have already deduced on their own.

I've been programming professionally for about 18 years now, and have programmed in most of the main programming languages. I'm currently the lead developer and owner of a web design shop. I picked up this eBook, looking for a good resource for new hires - and was very happily surprised with the depth and knowledge within these pages. Mr. Clark does a terrific job introducing programming in general, comparing the main programming languages and then covering the basics of programming - the universal concepts that are shared across all languages. Each programming language will have its own syntax and nuances but having a resource that introduces and explains the core concepts with basic examples is extremely useful. I'll be recommending this eBook no any developer just starting out, even if they've been in it for a few years.Easy to read and covers a lot of ground!

I am not a tech guy, but wanted to learn more. So I picked up Nathan Clark's book for beginning programming, and was given foundational instruction to start me on my way. The author offers in a very clear and concise manner guidance to the breadth of terminology and concepts needed to learn basic programming. He covers a spectrum of topics and languages to orient the newbie to the field. I highly recommend this book for beginners and for other people interested in the topic. He makes a complex subject easier to understand.

My "introduction" to programming was my father giving me his code when I was a child and asking me to explain it. I learned a great deal about syntax and basic structure, but missed many concepts.Through the years, I've tried to pick up different languages and I find myself consistently stuck on the idea of OOP, but this book really cemented that and many other ideas and concepts of programming in general that I will now be able to use as a foundation as I explore specific languages now.Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge!

This book aims to help those without any programming knowledge get up to speed quick. If you need to fill in gaps of your knowledge, it’s a quick refresher too. This book also has examples to illustrate its points. It is not language specific. There were some minor spelling errors but it did not interfere with comprehension of the material.For me personally, I hit a wall in my learning of JavaScript and Python. Other lessons just didn’t go deep enough especially on the symbols, statements, or functions. Now I understand a lot better and have started applying what I’ve learned.