How to Design Programs: An
Introduction to Programming and
Computing by Shriram Krishnamurthi
Excellent Book For Rookies And Veterans
This introduction to programming places computer science in the core of a
liberal arts education. Unlike other introductory books, it focuses on the
program design process. This approach fosters a variety of skills--critical
reading, analytical thinking, creative synthesis, and attention to detail--that
are important for everyone, not just future computer programmers. The
book exposes readers to two fundamentally new ideas. First, it presents
program design guidelines that show the reader how to analyze a problem
statement; how to formulate concise goals; how to make up examples;
how to develop an outline of the solution, based on the analysis; how to
finish the program; and how to test. Each step produces a well-defined
intermediate product. Second, the book comes with a novel programming
environment, the first one explicitly designed for beginners. The
environment grows with the readers as they master the material in the
book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of

programming tasks. All the books support materials are available for free
on the Web. The Web site includes the environment, teacher guides,
exercises for all levels, solutions, and additional projects.
Personal Review: How to Design Programs: An Introduction to
Programming and Computing by Shriram Krishnamurthi
As a programming do-it-yourselfer I've had many conflicting responses to
this text -- it's didactic style, its attention to detail, its sometimes patronizing
tone, its rigor and broad scope and at the same time its immersion in
minutia and quiddities I have never encountered in 'computer books' I had
ever perused. Perhaps it's my liberal arts background, or love 'em/hate 'em
sensitivity to all those broad stiff-spined textbooks I had carried in back-
packs since childhood, combined with a disdain for the authoritative stilted
style these educators exude -- despite their patent love of their subject. I
felt at once both patronized and condescended to.
From the very start of their journey into a detailed six step-by-step
process that show the reader how to analyze problem statements, how to
formulate goals, make up examples, outline a solution, and test a solution
the authors proclaim their pedagogical ends: "We [...] believe that the study
of program design deserves the same central role in general education as
mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn
how to design programs..." This is not a textbook, this is a revolutionary
pamphlet calling for educational reform. I had read nothing like this in the
tens of 'Dummies' and 'In 24 Hours' books I had exposed myself to. One
part priggish, two parts pedagogic. I often found myself asking for whom
was it written? First-year college student?, ambitious would-be high-school
programmer wanna-be? Math mavens? Surely not a middle-aged bookish
clerk who tastes run more to Turgenev and Dostoevsky than Turing and
Dijkstra. But then I demanded more than mere anonymous web-lurking
from my lowly pc. I remember myself many years ago trying to learn
BASIC on a massive time-share computer and telling myself surely there
was had to be more magic to computing than this. Well, after reading more
texts and having had to unlearn the 'Dummies' and the 'In 24 hours' style
of disinformation I had finally found the marrow of a discipline that is as
demanding as any I had ever come across and as vexing as any artistic
rigor I had ever been inspired by. Come be confused, come be amused,
amazed and intellectually abused. Sorely, if I find I have little talent for this
excruciatingly logical endevour, I have also found a full-blown appreciation
of such daunting computational cheekiness. Much to learn here, and this is
only the "core subject of a liberal arts education." What had I been wasting
my time on all those years as a professional student?
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