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A book to teach ANYBODY how to program a computer.
The original vision for this book was to create a hands-on introduction of computer programming for Middle School and High School students. It has been written without much of the jargon and complexity of many programming books and will be suitable for anybody 10+ who wants to learn to program and is ready to experiment.
Programming a computer is considered by many to be a task that is beyond a typical middle grades learner. I personally know this is not so because, I learned to program my TRS-80 home computer during those years of my life. Programming was different: simpler in that we didn't need to worry about hard disks, color, or graphics; and harder for the same reasons.
This book attempts to engage through programming media (sound, color, shapes, and text to speech) and then working in the typical concepts of programming (loops, conditions, variables...) to make animations, games, and fun applications. Full source code to example programs are given so that experimentation can really hone the skills learned.
Recent updates to the book include: sprites, sorting, stacks, queues, linked lists, error trapping, databases, and networking.
James M. Reneau - jim@renejm.com - 2010/09/09
Saturday, March 12, 2011, 21:00
New Flash Tutorials
I have just created three new Flash based tutorials for Chapter One. You can access them from the main menu. More are being developed.
Friday, November 19, 2010, 06:32
Russian Translation
The first two chapters of a Russian translation can be found at http://freeschool.altlinux.ru/. More is coming. Special thanks to Sergey Lupin for all of his work and encouragement.
Jim
Thursday, November 18, 2010, 14:23
Book Finally Released for Sale
After going through a couple of proofs and many minor cosmetic changes the first printed edition is available from CreateSpace (an Amazon Comppany) at https://www.createspace.com/3497712. It should also be available through local book retailers and Amazon in 4 to 6 weeks (January 2011).
Jim Reneau
Saturday, November 13, 2010, 11:35
New version of book available.
Updated the book formatting and added new features (through 0.9.6.48) after reviewing proof from Createspace. Hope to have the final proof approved in the next week.
Jim
Thursday, November 11, 2010, 16:36
New Web Forum
Moved the page comment function to a new Web forum at http://forum.basicbook.org. The forum will be a place to make suggestions about the book, reviews, post questions, answer questions, and develop a web community of people who have used the book.
Jim
Monday, November 01, 2010, 15:19
Current Version Available in Print.
Just published the current edition of the book at "Createspace". Createspace.com is an Amazon.com company and will be distributing copies of the current edition. The book would make a great gift.
Jim Reneau
Thursday, September 09, 2010, 19:04
Networking, Error Trapping, and Databases
Just finished reformatting the book for printing. Added chapters 18 (Error Trapping), 19 (Database), and 20 (Network Sockets). These new chapters have not been proofed and are a bit rough but I wanted to get them out there for everybody to look at.
This semester at school is a heavy load and my dissertation is taking much of my time. I do not know how much will get done over the next few months but changes are in the works.
Jim Reneau
Sunday, July 11, 2010, 19:07
Update to the book.
Uploaded a new version of the book. Two new chapters covering sprites (12) and data structures/sorting (17) were added to the book.
This really brings the book to the place that I wanted it to be by the end of my summer break. There will be many additions and corrections but it is now complete.
I am very encouraged by the number of downloads but have not received much feedback from the community. What do you all think?
Jim Reneau
Monday, June 21, 2010, 14:08
Teaching a group from the book.
Last week I lead a group of 12 middle school students through an introduction to BASIC programming using the book. We had a great time and the experience seemed to be a great success.
Thursday, June 17, 2010, 08:48
Working on revision & teaching a class using the book.
I am currently working on two new chapters and several revisions of the book. I am inserting a new chapter 12 that will cover Images, WAV files, and Sprites (recently added to the language). Also I am adding a new chapter at the end that will cover stacks, queues, and a couple of sorting algorithms.
This week I am also teaching an summer enrichment class to 12 middle-school kids using the book (without the new additions) and they are having a really good time. Several of them are programming at home and really shining. I will post a more complete discussion of how it went and how the schedule worked, once the week is over.
Jim
