One book to learn/get introduced to a programming language

Question

If one would be allowed to read only one book to learn new programming language what book would that be?

My (rather small) list would be

• C - C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
• C++ - The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup
• Java - Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel
• Lisp - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman
• ML - Elements of ML Programming by Jeffrey D. Ullman

What about Python, Ruby, C# and others?

Answer 1

• C# - Apress Pro C#
• Python - Dive into Python

Answer 2

Programming Python

Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby

Answer 3

F# - Expert F#

Answer 4

+1 for C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie, It is the first book that got me into programming during junior year of high school. I now have a BS in Computer Science from Purdue and am a full time software developer.

Answer 5

A little clarification:

• Scheme - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs(SICP) by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman
• Common Lisp - ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham

Answer 6

I recommend the Head First Series from O'Reilly for basic introduction to any of the topics they've published. Typically, these books will need to be followed up by something more in-depth afterwards, but they're excellent for quick and easy reading, retaining the presented information and getting up and running in the new area of interest.

C# - Head First C#

Answer 7

C# - CLR via C#

Answer 8

The Little Schemer by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen. A wonderful introduction to thinking recursively using the Lisp dialect of scheme.

Answer 9

Python in a Nutshell by Alex Martelli is fantastic for someone who's already a programmer.

Answer 10

Ruby - Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide. Sometimes referred to as the Pickaxe book. This is the book I used to learn Ruby. It's great!

Answer 11

I have a thread that tries to document the best books and online tutorials. I would greatly apprecate adding your suggestions to it here

Answer 12

Real World Haskell -- One of my professors at UT always managed to sneak in a few Haskell examples into each of his courses, and at the time I managed to learn enough to get by. Ever since then I have installed Hugs and/or GHC on every computer I have ever used and continued to play around with Haskell but never really learning to use it seriously until I got this book.

Answer 13

If you know other programming languages and the target programming language is not too dissimilar from what you know, an O'Reilly Cookbook (or equivalent) in the target language can be a good introduction. Once you've put the new language to use a bit, you can go back and fill in the more technical knowledge gap with other books. But's it's often nice to get a bit of code that does something meaningful early on to catch a feel for a new language.

Answer 14

• Scala -- Programming in Scala[1]

  [1]: http://www.artima.com/shop/programming_in_scala Programming in Scala