Comment by surfingdino
12 days ago
It is a good book for someone who is familiar with programing computers. It is not the best way to introduce the concepts behind writing software to someone who has never written a computer program. The very beginning does the book disservice
> A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.
Not everyone appreciates that kind of language and the suggestion that software development is some kind of alchemy that can only be understood by the chosen ones is the kind of bullshit that makes people loose interest. It actually projects an amateurish not professional image of the profession. I always found the SCIP crowd unbearable. Which is sad, because there is good information and solid knowledge in that book.
There is a lot of “we’re nerds, and we own it” in that book. I suspect it was at least somewhat a response to the contemporaneous “ewww computer nerds are the worst kind of dweeb” nonsense that was happening in schools in the 90s.
Personally? I love how it’s written. I find it clever, engaging, and that it uses clever analogies and examples, with a theme running throughout. The little comics provide some levity as well.
I guess, to me, thinking of programming as alchemy effectively levels the playing field a lot. It means nobody is “born with it,” unlike looks or a straight nose or anything like that. It’s all about learning.
That’s how I read it, anyway.
Amateurish? Maybe. But, and this is important: we were all amateurs and it’s an intro to CS book. By definition, the people reading this book should be amateurs.