Book Recommendation?

Hi…I have found this BBS very helpful and would like to thank the contributors.

I would also like to ask if anyone could point me in the direction of a book that would help me think more like a programmer. Not a specific Applescript book (I think I have most of those), but a book that helps me better understand the way programmers do things…like getting from here to there with loops, error handling, and stuff like that.

There seem to be basic concepts that are applicable to all scripting (maybe all programming) languages that I would like to better understand.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Code Complete by Steve McConnell http://www.stevemcconnell.com/; excellent for learning the difference between good and bad practice and why it matters. It’s the sort of book you can pick up and read the chapters that interest you as and when you need them.

I’d also suggest something like How To Think Like A Computer Scientist http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/ just to make sure you’re properly grounded. Good for flushing out all the crud that one tends to accumulate while learning AppleScript.

One more thing: go learn about other languages; not necessarily in depth, but enough to get an idea of how they work and why; what they’re good for and where they fall short. Broaden your perspective. Lisp, Smalltalk, Python, Perl, C, Java, Haskell, Eiffel, Self, etc. Try to learn one or two well enough to read and use (I found Python the easiest to get to from AppleScript); aart from anything else, there’s a lot more high-quality code available that you can learn from.

HTH