After talking more and more with my classmates at University of Phoenix, it has become clear that many of them do not know the first thing about programming, but they are eager to learn more. When I was asked what’s a good book for beginners, I really do not have the answer.
Personally, programming didn’t make sense to me until I had my first course in C. I had tried to learn from books prior to that point, but I was never successful. The books always made ridiculous assumptions about the individual’s ability, and it resulted in me being more frustrated when I follow all of the steps and they have left out something major (such as the whole TerminalIO thing below).
So, my question is do you guys have a book that you would recommend for the absolute beginner? Something that covers the basics well enough so that someone would be making their first console / GUI app?
Obviously I wouldn’t want to recommend something like Design Patterns or Code Complete to an absolute beginner, they have to understand programming before they can understand how to do it well.