How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing

This book is perhaps the very best book to jump into programming. It can be best learnt from the video course with the same title. The book suggests a systematic approach to software development, and it is doing it very well. However, the book cries for an editor. The authors should read a book about How to Design Books. The content is good, but the structure is chaotic, which makes it a very hard reader. I am thinking of sending this book back (esp. for this price), and I definitely do not recommend for anyone to buy the paper edition.

A very good book

I don't like the authors' "design recipe" all that much, but the problems (done in Racket) are interesting and fun.Another plus for this book is it has you make some simple games in Racket. Actual moving sprites and such - not text based. That provides a great example of a functional API that lets you update state without... updating state!If you're a real-worlder trying to crack functional programming, the two recommended books are this one and "get programming with Haskell." After two functional languages learned, you will "get it"

Racket is a great language. This is a terrible book. It's not fit for a beginner. I never made it far because the lessons are unclear and confusing. In contrast, a book such as "Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation" is much more beginner friendly. Of course that book is for Common Lisp, and not Racket. There are no good books for beginners to learn Racket.You're probably better off learning Common Lisp instead. The Common Lisp knowledge will transfer over to Racket also because they are both Lisps.If you are totally new to programming then don't even try Racket or Common Lisp. Learn Python. Python is the most beginnner friendly.

Bad book:1) unclear instructions. Often opaque. You need to read minds to understand what the authors want you to do.2) No answer key. The book uses Racket. Good luck finding answers to the exercises anywhere online.The poorly worded exercises and the lack of answers make this book useless for self-study.