Learn to Program

by Chris Pine and Chris Pine

Book Overview

Printed in full color.

For this new edition of the best-selling Learn to Program, Chris Pine has taken a good thing and made it even better. First, he used the feedback from hundreds of reader e-mails to update the content and make it even clearer. Second, he updated the examples in the book to use the latest stable version of Ruby, and also to use code that looks more like real-world Ruby code, so that people who have just...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1934356360
• ISBN13: 9781934356364
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Why Aren't More Books Written Like This???

First things first, this is a wonderful book for learning to use Ruby on Rails. While reading this book, I asked myself "why aren't more beginners books written like this?" For a beginners book, the last thing that I want is a 700 page behemoth that screams THIS IS CONFUSING I AM SCARY I AM INTIMIDATING!!!!! At 150 pages, this book is concise, clear, to the point, and entertaining. For the low price that this book retails at, Chris Pine has written a book that gets away from deluging the reader with too much information, and instead gets back to basics what a BASIC book is supposed to be about (no basic the language, but basic in material). If you want to learn Ruby on Rails and get up to speed on the ins and outs of this new, hot way to do web development with less code than ever before, pick up this book and you'll get moving in no time!! ***** HIGHLY RECOMMNEDED

Learn to Program, not "Learn to Program in ---"

When I was getting started, I spent several months using "Learn to Program in ---". While I learned a lot about that language, I missed a lot of the fundamental concepts and practices that would have made me a more effective programmer. This book does an excellent job of teaching ***programming***. The author explains each idea in plain friendly English, and provides good examples in Ruby, one of the simplest languages. Even experienced programmers might enjoy (and benefit?) from reading this book. This book is so clear and well written, I'll also use it to teach programming to my home-schooled children when they're ready.

It actually works....

As I gaze up upon my bookshelf I see quite a few 'learn to code books' - most of them have bookmarks about a third in - I just never finished them, and as a consequence I am lousy programmer. Its not that I am not smart enough, its just that I am really easily bored, had I been born 10 years later I would probably have been diagnosed with ADD and been on medication (lucklily, I am not :P) Anyway .... I first did the tutorial on Chris Pine's webpage - and would you know it ...I completed it, and even wrote a few nifty ruby scripts afterwards (linux admin scripts)...wow! Chris have a talent here, his writing is funny - it keeps you entertained and to my horror - it actually teaches you stuff!! I highly recommend all of Chris' writing. Martni

Good beginners book

This is a fine introduction to programming using the Ruby programming language. It also serves as a good introduction to Ruby for programmers, though the Pick axe book would be better for that. All the basics are covered, flow control, variables, classes are covered in some detail. The text is jovial and clear. This is a fun book that is easy to get through. If you have had trouble learning to program in the past you might like to try again with Ruby. It's a very friendly language and this book makes it even easier.

Wonderful Introduction to Programming

This book (Learn to Program) is just great. I'm really impressed. My business partner has been working through it, and I expect her to be jumping in and taking over our Rails development projects by next week. Well maybe not, but this book is more than just a good introduction to programming. It's a *great* introduction to programming, because the author has chosen to teach programming with Ruby. In my opinion, Ruby is the perfect language to teach programming. Its power is obvious, but often overlooked is how pretty it is to read, and how obvious its code is. Taking just a little time each day for the past week, my partner has worked halfway through the book, and best of all, actually gets it! She has even completed all of the exercises, something I don't recall having done at that stage when I was learning to code. She may not jump in and take over our Rails project, but we may well be speaking the same language real soon.