What was your first programming book?
The idea behind the question is, just to know from where you started learning (programming).. but not related to 'best/recommended/...etc programming books'.
What was your first programming book?
The idea behind the question is, just to know from where you started learning (programming).. but not related to 'best/recommended/...etc programming books'.
Well, not as young as some, and not as old as others, but mine were BASIC books for the old VIC20 we had! Was jealous of all those C64 and Amiga owners!
The first real programming book was the C Programming Language, oh and the Sendmail Bible by Oreilly, took a while to figure out the talk like Modem Code!
Don't know if you'd call it a programming book (but it did cover basic JavaSript) was Paul McFedrie's CIG to HTML 4 when I was 15 or so.
My first actual programming book was CIG to VB6. I think I was 16 or 17. Ahh, the old days.
Dietel - C++ How to Program 5th Edition with Source Codes Cool Book for beginners... :D
Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours by Michael Moncur... I never thought it would lead to all this - I just wanted to put a lame animation on an intranet like most people who decide to learn JavaScript!
Some textbook about Watfor and Watfiv (i.e. Waterloo Fortran). But that just taught me syntax. What really flipped the bit was a Radio Shack book by Forrest Mims that explained how a computer actually worked.
A cheap book about PHP (probably given away as a gift with some computer magazine) which I'll not name here.
That way I could learn how to program spaghetti PHP and work a summer at 3 €uro/hour for the guy that lent me the book.
A shame, but that was the beginning.
Perhaps this one:
Ohjelmoinnin perusteet Java-kielellä by Arto Wikla (unofficial translation: "Foundations of Programming using the Java language")
It's a textbook used at Helsinki University, and probably many other Finnish schools.
Unlike many in this field, I only really learnt to program at the university, in the introductory course taught by Mr. Wikla. He's a great lecturer too, and presented basic OO concepts so that they stuck.
(Please add the coffee related cover image if you can find it!)
Looking at the other answers, I guess I'm showing my youth: The Complete C Reference.
I'll go for age... ICL 1900 Fortran, pub ~1970, followed a few weeks later by ICL 1900 Algol.
How to Program Your IBM PC: Advanced Basic Programming, by Carl Shipman
Can't find a picture of it - but it was in a red notebook-like binder.
I never really did any Basic programming - went on to C, so K&R's The C Programming Language (1st ed) was the first one I used - but that red book was the first one I read, and helped me get a feel for programming.
Fortran for Humans. I already knew how to program on RSTS Basic and thought I'd learn a new language (this was 1977). I was on a camping trip (with America Trails West) through BC to Alaska and we stopped at the University of Anchorage book store. While there I bought the book to read by the campfire (I am SUCH a geek).
I still have it in my office.
Kids to Kids on the Apple Computer by Billy Sanders and Sam Edge (1984), and I still have it on the bookshelf in my office.
Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days.
I was around 11 years old.
Instant HTML, which I picked up because I was bored at my tech support job, and wanted to do and learn more....and then used it to create a Tech Support Intranet...Then i became webmaster, hostmaster, and eventually ended up in business with a former football player...to run a football news site.
An IBM Fortran manual. This was one of several reference manuals for an IBM computer which was not a PC, even though it was almost as powerful as the first PCs that came out 10 years later.
Sprechen Sie Java? by Hanspeter Mössenböck
A German introductory book for Java.
The ALGOL-60 manual for the PDP-10 (http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS20/V4.0_Apr80/AA-0196C-TK_ALGOL_Pgmr_Apr77.pdf).
That was back in 1980: The user's and reference manual for my ELTEC Eurocom-1: A single board computer using the Motorola 8602. Programming was done by manually translating assembler code into HEX and then typing it via a hex keyboard and 7-segment LED display.
The BASIC manual of my first computer, a Canon V-20 MSX. It was a very advanced book for its time (1985), it even dealed with concepts such as the garbage collection engine used by MSX BASIC to manage the string storage (we are speaking about a Z80 based computer!)
The chapter about the BASIC interpreter for my VTech learning computer. I don't know how old I was at that time... But that small BASIC interpreter was my first encounter with a programming language.
Many dark nights huddled over a ZX Spectrum keyboard with this baby. Stuff of legends.
You can even download a copy: http://www.z80.info/zip/zaks_book.pdf
Lerne BASIC mit dem Commodore 116/16/Plus 4, which came bundled with my Commodore 16:
I think it was the manual for Amiga BASIC. I didn't really know any English back then though...
Internet. Sorry, I've never been much of a book-reader, unless the letters are behind a monitor.
I can perfectly recall the first programming book i read till today - I took it from the public library about 12-14 years ago, had a name similiar to "The beginners guide to computer programming", and on the cover there was a picture of indiana jones with is whip in hand, and the huge rock chasing him from behind.
If someone knows this book, I would love to see a picture of the cover just for nostalgic memories... :)
This is the first book I bought; as a reference for what I've learned in school. Is worth his money, explaining everything in detail with a lot of examples.
CSS: The Definitive Guide, by Eric Meyer, in 2002.
It’s not strictly programming, of course, but it’s ultimately to blame for me trying to make a living making software.
Strictly programming would be JavaScript, The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan, a little later that same year.
"Das Atari Profibuch", first book I bought around 1987. It is the best reference on programming for 8 Bit Atari computers in german language. I started 1982 on the ZX-81, but first borrowed all needed books from the library.
The first "real world" one was "Using C" by Mark and Lee Atkinson. Many years before that, various introductory texts, mostly on BASIC and Pascal.