What's a good beginner programming book

gareman

gareman

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Maybe this should go in the PC forum but this will probably get more responses and views.

I am looking to try out programming. Can anyone suggest some good comprehensive beginner's books,dvds,programs, or websites.

I have a good grasp on logic (formal and informal), relatively good with computers, and somewhat understand the basic concept of computer programming. So although I have no real applied knowledge I have a relatively good background to understanding programming. I am thinking about classes but all the perquisites will kill the pocket book and probably waste a year or two on pointless classes like CS 100 etc. I am also inclined to be more autodidactic, so I think books and videos are the best for me.

Also any advice as to what program I should start with? Also is XNA a decent programing tool.
 
What language do you want to program in? Also, what do you want to make? Since you mention XNA, you'd probably want to learn C#, which almost codes itself, but online is a pretty good resource, like Microsoft's MSDN site.
 
[quote name='SneakyPenguin']What language do you want to program in? Also, what do you want to make? Since you mention XNA, you'd probably want to learn C#, which almost codes itself, but online is a pretty good resource, like Microsoft's MSDN site.[/quote]

Yeah I was thinking C#. I want to try my hand at games and just doing fun programs.
 
XNA is really obscenely easy to make games with, and C# is easy as shit for simple programs (I whipped a control scheme modifier up in about two hours yesterday, from scratch). But yea, best bet is online resources, as books don't really target games, and if they do, they're C/C++ focused.
 
I highly recommend C# or Java as a first language.

Any of the O'Reilly books are great. You really don't need any hard books, per se. You can get most of what you need online. XNA and Microsoft MSDN have vast libraries of resources. There are countless sites for source examples.

Edit: Read that wrong. I program in C++ daily (game developer) and thought you were looking at that for your first language.
 
The C Programming Language by K&R. It's my favorite book by far.

After that, check out Accelerated C++ if you want to get into the whole object oriented thing.

Both books are very short and easy to work through. Highly recommended. Five stars.
 
Yeah I would suggest online. I have some books on game programming and the code does not work or if it does they do not give you all of the code you need. I went to a tech school for programming and picked one of the books up for vb.net and c# when I was learning them. That way I could try stuff other then database programming. I could not get the code to run at all and went over and over every line. I took the book to class and typed it in and made sure it was what the book had and asked my instructor to look at it and after his normal BS he looked at it and said I was wrong or the book was wrong. He looked at the book and told me that the book was wrong or didn't tell me something. I later looked up reviews on both books and found that they had updates for the books online and found that others were having the same issues and that even the updates still were wrong or not fully correct.
 
Many of the examples in the Murach books are available on their website i believe. Meaning that you don't have to type them out of the book.
 
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