Please Recommend Programming Books

[powerfuldude]

Well, Christmas is fast approaching and I don't really need anything. My family has a problem with giving nothing and/or cash. I want to be a programmer. I know basics and such, but I was hoping you people could recommend some books on learning languages that would be helpful to a programmer, books on white hat hacking, or books about programming theory for me. If it helps, I want to be an applications development programmer. Both pleases and thank yous.

[Deathroad]

Books! I spend my life reading them. Now, a good book depends on what you want. As you want to develop software I recommend "Programming: Principles and Practices using C++", by Bjarne Stroustrup. This is the book I wished I had when learning to program. It has an heavy emphasis on using the correct techniques for a given situation, illustrating many concepts and such.

Eh, I really can't remember much more, though. All other books I've read for beginners were like... missing something. On advanced programming I'd be able to give more advice. I feel this one book has the best teaching philosophy I've found so far. When I want to teach someone a new concept that's explained here, I re-read some part of the book to know how best should I do it.

[powerfuldude]

Thanks, and I know what you mean about the basic programming books. I have an old college textbook from my mom on C. It stresses some basic concepts and skips others.

[Peaceblossom]

When I was trying to learn C++ I picked up a book called C++ From The Ground Up by Herbert Shildt. I don't think it assumed any previous knowledge of programming and had very extensive descriptions and examples.

The book also had either URLs or a CD that made all of the examples available so you wouldn't have to re-write them from the book.

I've also picked up Starting Out With Python by Tony Gaddis as supplement to the computer science course I'm taking in University. It covers everything from displaying the line "Hello World" to GUI programming. What's nice about GUI programming with Python is that it is presented in essentially plain-English compared to other languages. The book touches most-heavily on the important programming concepts, and offers a lot of insight into what everything does in Python.

The general rule is the harder the language is to learn, the more powerful it is. Sure, maybe assembler is more powerful than Python, but a beginner likely isn't interested in a language which exposes a lot of the operating system's internal workings. Python should be just fine if you've never programmed before.

[ParadoxVoid]

One of the recommended texts for my course in Java this semester was Big Java by Cay Horstmann. I found it to be extremely useful - very easy to understand, with good examples, and also really good explanations.

[fourthfrench]

The entire head first series is a pleasure to read, especially for people without prior programming experience. You get a decent knowledge of the language when you are done, and they put a lot of effort into making it painless learning. It's also a great springboard into more advanced stuff.