Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming, Third Edition

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Summary: Professor backed...
Review: My professor, a thirty-five year veteran programmer, highly recommended this read as a supplement to the C course, Intro to Programming I am taking. It is well-written and much more concise than the factory text, which is written for programmers. I look forward to finishing the book and the course!

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Summary: Author a right-wing nut!
Review: Please read this web-site created by author before purchase:
www.gregandjayne.com/GregsCorner.htm

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Summary: Very Pleased
Review: The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming is an excellent first book for beginning programmers. The explanations are clear and help to bring a sense of continuity to topics otherwise confusing to novice computer users. You don't have to be interested in programming to benefit from this book. I teach beginning computer applications, and I pride myself of being able to communicate to persons who don't believe themselves to be computer literate in the least, the fundamentals of computer operations. I have gained valuable information not only for my interest in computer programming, but for my classes as well. Thank you Mr. Perry. Your book has helped me immeasurably.

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Summary: I Wish I Had Known
Review: The book lives up to its title in terms of being an introductory guide to programming, but what I didn't know was I had to have the specific program "Visual Basic" as well to get beyond chapter five. This revelation left the remaining 19 chapters of the book of no value to me at all. I do have "Visual Basic.Net", but it's way too much of a process to try to convert from one program to another and learn how they work at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: I Wish I Had Known
Review: The book lives up to its title in terms of being an introductory guide to programming, but what I didn't know was I had to have the specific program "Visual Basic" as well to get beyond chapter five. This revelation left the remaining 19 chapters of the book of no value to me at all. I do have "Visual Basic.Net", but it's way too much of a process to try to convert from one program to another and learn how they work at the same time.

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Summary: Not a good guide at all....
Review: This book dives into various programming languages which is helpful - but does not provide clear examples or suggest how you can write basic programs. Even using Visual Studio .Net I struggled to get the code in this book to generate a working program. I would not recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to write programs - there are much better books on the various languages. I was very disappointed by this book and have already retired it.

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Summary: Golden Oldie
Review: This book is a masterpiece but suffers from one major flaw, it is outdated. Perry is at his usual best here in describing the programming process to the average layman. He breaks into rich examples of QBASIC and describes in very general terms the protocol of the programming job market. For anyone totally unfamiliar with programming in the early nineties this would be an ideal book. Perry has since picked up where this book left off with his newer book TEACH YOURSELF BEGINNING PROGRAMMING IN 24 HOURS. The newer book even includes identical opening chapters from this book which are still relevant today. Unless you are loking for a very primitive primer on programming and QBASIC in particular, I recommend skipping this book and going for Perry's later contribution. If you are seeking a QBASIC primer to prepare for Visual Basic you might be better off getting Perry's outstanding book QBASIC BY EXAMPLE. Aside from that this book has little to offer in the rapidly changing world of computer programming in the year 2000.

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Summary: Well Written, But Out Of Date...
Review: This book is from 1993 and is not up-to-date. It has no coverage of Java whatsoever. The good news is that Greg Perry is an excellent author and has a more current book in the "Sam's" series, which is "Sam's Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours," so I would suggest that book instead. It is just as entertaining and a lot more current.

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Summary: where do you get the software?
Review: this book is great for learning how to program...if you can get your hands on the software. Visual basic 6.0 working edition is the model for the majority of the text and the author offers no way to get it for free, which means you have to buy it seperately. I would suggest getting a book that has the programming languages you are going to use included on a cd.

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Summary: One of the best beginner's guides to programming.
Review: This book is one of the best beginner's guides to programming. It will teach you from the very beginning point to the fundamental of programming. The book will teach you basic programming language Visual Basic and will mention C, C++, Java and Web Programming. It is wriiten quite understandable in Plain English. If you want to programm but do not know where to start this book can be your starting point. Good Luck.