How to Design Programs, Second Edition
Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, Shriram Krishnamurthi
Did you see the capital letters? Did you see the italic text? Italic text introduces a technical term. For this introduction, we leave it up to you to figure out what kind of technical terms these are.
Good programming requires thought, but everyone can do it and everyone can experience the satisfaction that comes with it. The price is worth paying for the sheer joy of the discovery process, the elegance of the result, and the commercial benefits of a systematic program design process.
The goal of our book is to introduce readers of all ages and backgrounds to the craft of designing programs systematically. We assume few prerequisites: arithmetic, a tiny bit of middle school algebra, and the willingness to think through issues. We promise that the travails will pay off not just for future programmers but for anyone who has to follow a process or create one for others.
We are grateful to Ada Brunstein, our editor at MIT Press, who gave us permission to develop this second edition of "How to Design Programs" on-line.
Acknowledgments: We thank Ryan Golbeck, Scott Greene, Jordan Johnson, Gregor Kiczales, Jackson Lawler, Jay McCarthy, Scott Newson, Paul Ojanen, Luis Sanjuán, and Marc Smith for comments on previous drafts of this second edition.