searching book tips

searching book tips

[anoglad]

Hi,

We learn C# at school... and I'd like to write beautiful free software. However, I'm still a bloody beginner. So could you give me please some nice book tips about C, C++ and of course Guile? It would be sooo awesome.

thank you very much

Re: searching book tips

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

anoglad@gmx.at writes:
> We learn C# at school... and I'd like to write beautiful free
> software. However, I'm still a bloody beginner. So could you give me
> please some nice book tips about C, C++ and of course Guile? It
> would be sooo awesome.

AFAIK, C# is quite different from C or C++.  It is my understanding
that it is closer to Objective-C or Smalltalk.  Don't be misled by the
syntax, what matters is the semantics.  That said I don't know
anything about C# so I may be wrong.

Probably the most effective thing  you can do to learn how to write
beautiful software, is to study SICP:

SICP   = Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
         http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-4.html
         http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
         http://www.codepoetics.com/wiki/index.php?title=Topics:SICP_in_other_languages
         http://eli.thegreenplace.net/category/programming/lisp/sicp/
         http://www.neilvandyke.org/sicp-plt/

As you may note with the link SICP_in_other_languages, SICP is not
specifically about scheme (it just happen to use scheme for the
examples and exercises since it's a little language that's easy to
learn).



-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

Re: searching book tips

[anoglad]

Thank you so much for these nice links.

> We learn C# at school... and I'd like to write beautiful free software.

I should have written: "We learn C# at school... but I'd like to write beautiful free software."

Re: searching book tips

[Joel James Adamson]

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anoglad@gmx.at writes:

> Thank you so much for these nice links.
>
>> We learn C# at school... and I'd like to write beautiful free software.
>
> I should have written: "We learn C# at school... but I'd like to write
> beautiful free software."

Right, well C# may or may not be a good language to learn programming
concepts, but I'm glad you're looking to use other languages to write
Free Software.  You /can/ write Free Software in C#, but you probably
shouldn't[1].

I am focusing now on C and Guile, although I may try C++ sometime soon.
I've studied numerous languages over a few years --- with no formal
training, take that as you wish --- and I think C and Scheme are the
best for my tasks and for satisfying other needs, like portability,
freedom, etc.  

I would also suggest learning Emacs Lisp, as it is something you can
learn from and use to improve your workflow on a daily basis.

Books I recommend:
- The Little Schemer[2]
- The Practice of Programming[3]
- The Art of Unix Programming[4]: mainly for history and philosophy,
less so for actual code

Joel

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

[2]  http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/BTLS/

[3]  http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/tpop/index.html

[4]  http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Servedio Lab
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

FSF Member #8164
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

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Re: searching book tips

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

On Sat, Aug 28 2010, anoglad@gmx.at wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We learn C# at school... and I'd like to write beautiful free
> software. However, I'm still a bloody beginner. So could you give me
> please some nice book tips about C, C++ and of course Guile? It would
> be sooo awesome.

For C, i'd recommend Kernnigan and Ritchie's classic "The C programming
language" [0], and Hanson's "C Interfaces and Implementations" [1].

For Scheme, and programming in general, i wholeheartedly second the SICP
recommendation (the videos are great fun too). You can also take a look
at my scheme bookshelf [2].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language_(book)
[1] http://sites.google.com/site/cinterfacesimplementations/
[2] http://programming-musings.org/2007/01/31/a-scheme-bookshelf/


HTH,
jao
-- 
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
 -Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

Re: searching book tips

[anoglad]

>>>>> Jose A Ortega Ruiz <jao@gnu.org> writes:

    > On Sat, Aug 28 2010, anoglad@gmx.at wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> We learn C# at school... but I'd like to write beautiful free
    >> software. However, I'm still a bloody beginner. So could you
    >> give me please some nice book tips about C, C++ and of course
    >> Guile? It would be sooo awesome.

    > For C, I'd recommend Kernnigan and Ritchie's classic "The C
    > programming language" [0], and Hanson's "C Interfaces and
    > Implementations" [1].

    > For Scheme, and programming in general, i wholeheartedly second
    > the SICP recommendation (the videos are great fun too). You can
    > also take a look at my scheme bookshelf [2].

    > [0]
    > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language_(book)
    > [1] http://sites.google.com/site/cinterfacesimplementations/ [2]
    > http://programming-musings.org/2007/01/31/a-scheme-bookshelf/


    > HTH, jao
    > -- 
    > Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
    > -Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)


Thank you very very very much for these nice links.

Re: searching book tips

[Flavio Souza]

I am reading this book: 

Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html

So far so good. :)

Regards,

-- 
Flávio Souza
http://www.flaviosouza.org

Re: searching book tips

[Andy Wingo]

On Thu 30 Sep 2010 02:55, Flavio Souza <flaviostz@gmail.com> writes:

> I am reading this book: 
>
> Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science
>
> http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html

It's a fun one, but you should temper it with a book that has a more
strict approach to syntactic abstraction. I don't know of one off-hand,
though.

Andy
-- 
http://wingolog.org/