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(36 reviews)
Author: Bruce A. Tate
ISBN : B00AYQNR46
New from $16.50
Format: PDF
Direct download links available Free Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages [Kindle Edition] from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
You should learn a programming language every year, as recommended by The Pragmatic Programmer. But if one per year is good, how about Seven Languages in Seven Weeks? In this book you'll get a hands-on tour of Clojure, Haskell, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, and Ruby. Whether or not your favorite language is on that list, you'll broaden your perspective of programming by examining these languages side-by-side. You'll learn something new from each, and best of all, you'll learn how to learn a language quickly.
Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell. With Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, by Bruce A. Tate, you'll go beyond the syntax-and beyond the 20-minute tutorial you'll find someplace online. This book has an audacious goal: to present a meaningful exploration of seven languages within a single book. Rather than serve as a complete reference or installation guide, Seven Languages hits what's essential and unique about each language. Moreover, this approach will help teach you how to grok new languages.
For each language, you'll solve a nontrivial problem, using techniques that show off the language's most important features. As the book proceeds, you'll discover the strengths and weaknesses of the languages, while dissecting the process of learning languages quickly--for example, finding the typing and programming models, decision structures, and how you interact with them.
Among this group of seven, you'll explore the most critical programming models of our time. Learn the dynamic typing that makes Ruby, Python, and Perl so flexible and compelling. Understand the underlying prototype system that's at the heart of JavaScript. See how pattern matching in Prolog shaped the development of Scala and Erlang. Discover how pure functional programming in Haskell is different from the Lisp family of languages, including Clojure.
Explore the concurrency techniques that are quickly becoming the backbone of a new generation of Internet applications. Find out how to use Erlang's let-it-crash philosophy for building fault-tolerant systems. Understand the actor model that drives concurrency design in Io and Scala. Learn how Clojure uses versioning to solve some of the most difficult concurrency problems.
It's all here, all in one place. Use the concepts from one language to find creative solutions in another-or discover a language that may become one of your favorites.
Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation Free Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages
- File Size: 712 KB
- Print Length: 328 pages
- Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (January 8, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00AYQNR46
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,914 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Free Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages
Background: I stumbled across the author's blog post announcing his intention to write the book while looking for materials comparing language paradigms instead of particular languages (object-oriented, logical, functional, prototype, etc). The as yet unwritten book sounded like exactly what I was after (thus my enthusiastic anticipation). I purchased an electronic copy of this book from the Prag Press beta program about six months ago and began reading the chapters as they were completed and released. My paper copy just arrived from Amazon today. Thus I can comment on the whole content of the book and the physical object.
Languages: While the languages covered (Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell) are excitingly (painfully?) trendy the list is not without merit. In the introduction the author explains that he arrived at the list by asking readers and edited from there: swapping Io for JavaScript and excluding Python thereby making room for Prolog. One could debate the choice of Io over JavaScript (particularly in a post Node.js / Common.js world) and make a case for including Smalltalk as the canonical OO language over Ruby; however, the chosen languages each bring something to the book and represent a number of interesting paradigms.
Chapters: Each language has its own chapter. Each chapter has five sections:
- an introduction to the language covering topics like it's history, place in the modern language landscape, paradigm, etc
- 'Day 1'
- 'Day 2'
- 'Day 3'
- and a conclusion with a few parting words / 'the moral of the story is...'.
The boundaries between days are not particularly meaningful but roughly build from "here's the syntax" to "here's an interesting thing you can do with this paradigm".
The idea is good - have a brief overview of several programming languages that gather most curiosity in the community. The languages that made it to the book were chosen by the people the author asked beforehand.
Each language is given 3 days worth of chapters. First day is for a = b, second is for [a] = [b] and the third is for "real stuff". About two thirds of the book are therefore dedicated to simple variable assignments, number literals, containers (lists mostly), and control structures such as if's.
And herein lies the problem - although great to know that in language X assignment goes like
console> plz let a be 1
a nowz 1!!!oneone
console>
but what does it tell about the language ?
---QUOTE---
I'm confident that this material will capture the spirit of each programming language pretty well...
---/QUOTE---
I don't think it happened. It would be possible if the author had spent years working in each one. This is not the case, the author had learned the languages himself, took a bite and now explains the fullness and richness of taste. There is no trick here, the author is not pretending he is an expert in everything. All this is clearly admitted upfront. On the other hand a lot is required from the reader too. You are expected to give each individual language a try. Otherwise
---QUOTE---
If you simply read this book, you'll experience the flavour of the syntax and no more.
---/QUOTE---
Exactly what happened to me. None of the seven languages made me curious because of this book. I was curious about erlang before and I still am. I saw something beautiful behind haskell and I still do. The languages I haven't seen before, I'm as unsure about now as I was before.