Re: Programming beginners' documentation (was: Help i'm new)

["Jim Whitehead II" <jnwhiteh@...>]

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 4:43 PM, Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net> wrote:
> [ quick summary since the message got a little longer:
>   somewhat on topic: do we want a "thinkCS" book for Lua? (see below) ]
>
>  On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 07:51 -0400, Jim White wrote:
>  >
>  > As an update I have so far completed the first half of the tutorial in
>  > python and am quite pleased with this language.
>
>  This is getting off topic for the Lua list, but since you started
>  learning how to program with the Python language (and have a running
>  interpreter at hand), you might want to search for the "How to think
>  like a Computer Scientist" book, for which a Python edition is available
>  (search for "thinkCSpy").  This is an introduction to programming which
>  assumes absolutely _no_ previous knowledge, yet quickly reaches an
>  advanced level including object orientation and stuff.  In theory the
>  reader should not exactly learn Python with this book, but the concept
>  of programming -- where it's "more of a coincidence" that this happened
>  with Python, yet can be applied to other languages as well.
>
>  Now kind of let us return to the Lua topic:  Do you -- the ML
>  participants -- see a benefit in a Lua edition of the thinkCS book?
>  http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/index.xhtml
>
>  Or are the other existing and often referenced books considered
>  appropriate enough for total newbies?  I gladly admit that the blue PiL
>  is fun to read, totally worth buying as soon as one has to do with Lua
>  (regardless how much contact one has), yet it's not at all "simplistic"
>  -- quite the contrary, both newbies and seasoned programmers gain a lot
>  from reading and rereading(!) that excellent book.  And on top (I hope)
>  the project and the authors receive a little money from our purchasing
>  that book.
>
>  OTOH did I try to translate the thinkCSpy book into the German language
>  quite a few years ago, and had "communication issues" back then.  The
>  maintainer pointed me to another person who was said to already work on
>  this task, while this person had some funny ideas (wanted to translate
>  the HTML version which gets generated from the LaTeX source, instead of
>  translating the source and have all possible output formats generated
>  from it) and then quickly went silent for months, so my contribution
>  fell asleep (did actually not start at all, and I turned to other
>  languages after "having seen Python" ...).


I actually already have a very specific license that was granted to me
by the copyright holder that would allow us to write the book, while
fixing some of the issues with the current FDL license of the How To
Think Like a Computer Scientist books.  I've been planning on this
project for at least a year, but got distracted by writing my other
book.

- Jim