What do you think?
Rate this book
Coding training
Coding training57 Practice Questions to Enhance the Basics of Problem Solving This book helps you continue to refine your coding skills through 57 exercises based on real-world scenarios. Regardless of whether you are a beginner or an experienced programmer, the training presented in this book will improve your coding level one step further. Initially, I start with a simple input output program. It then covers more complex programs such as currency conversion, blood alcohol calculations, word substitution in files, record filtering, weather guides using Web services, data storage, and how many current astronauts are currently. Finally, you will be struggling with a scale program that synthesizes these exercises. For each programmer who wants a higher training intensity, we present constraints and challenges for each training task. By solving various difficulty exercises, you will gain a practical sense of the language you want to learn. You will also learn how to solve the same problem with new techniques and languages by repeatedly using this book every time you start a new programming language.
Paperback
First published September 15, 2015
45 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 15, 2016
Although the book explains some of the basics of programming, it just exposes the exercises and some sugestions to improve your solution without showing any solution.
Challenges aren't real challenges. Most of them are simple exercises to practice conditional and repetition instructions, data scructures, easy calculations, file manipulations and things like that. There aren't exercises with algorithmic complexity.
Recommend only if you're a mid-level programmer who wants to "play" with some new language or to use it as a helper to train beginners developers. If you're seeking for some hard problems, this book is not for you.
Challenges aren't real challenges. Most of them are simple exercises to practice conditional and repetition instructions, data scructures, easy calculations, file manipulations and things like that. There aren't exercises with algorithmic complexity.
Recommend only if you're a mid-level programmer who wants to "play" with some new language or to use it as a helper to train beginners developers. If you're seeking for some hard problems, this book is not for you.
February 29, 2020
Efficient for app developer but not specified for someone who struggling with data structure.
February 28, 2016
This book offers a nice collection of challenges from small to medium complexity. The introduction is well written and explains the most important part of software development: splitting complex problems into solvable ones.
However, there is one big catch: There are no solutions in the book. If you hope for a close feedback-loop, then this book will not be for you. If you know one programming language well, you could solve those problems in that language and later go on and try them with a new one. But even then it’s not really pleasing. This concept could work if there would be a community site with discussion boards where readers could help each other. Without that it’s just a book with questions and no answers.
However, there is one big catch: There are no solutions in the book. If you hope for a close feedback-loop, then this book will not be for you. If you know one programming language well, you could solve those problems in that language and later go on and try them with a new one. But even then it’s not really pleasing. This concept could work if there would be a community site with discussion boards where readers could help each other. Without that it’s just a book with questions and no answers.
January 6, 2016
It’s been a while since last I reviewed a book, so I wanted to end the year with ... a review.
Our friends at The British Computer Society (BCS) kindly sent me a copy of Exercises for Programmers: 57 Challenges to Develop Your Coding Skills by Brian P. Hogan a few weeks back.
This is available on Amazon but my e-book came via a different route, thanks to BCS.
The purpose of the book is to, via a series of exercises, teach the reader the fundamentals of computer programming. The book is language-neutral, so it makes no difference whether you choose to use C, Java, Python, Swift etc. as the focus is on teaching one how to solve a problem in code, rather than how to use a particular language.
Through a series of increasingly complex problems, the author coaches the reader in the art of problem-solving, demonstrating how one can output data, perform calculations, compare strings, develop re-usable functions, sort data, use public APIs etc.
This took me back to my student days, where the instructor would set an exercise, for example, write a programme to output the Fibonacci sequence, or print Pi to 32 decimal places etc.
Whilst this is a useful way to teach one HOW to programme, I found the exercises to be a little repetitive, and overly frustrating, perhaps because I’m not the ideal target audience i.e. I first learned to write computer programs more than 30 years ago, and I don’t program for a living.
Additionally, whilst the book does set out each problem clearly, it does not provide any example solutions, even for the most simple of problems. This means that there’s no obvious feedback loop between teacher and student. Again, it’s perhaps my bias, but I’d have preferred to see a few example solutions, showing how the problem might be solved.
Don’t get me wrong - this is a very useful book, and one that I’d definitely recommend to students of computing, but I’m not wholly convinced that it’d be the right tool for every job.
Perhaps it’s down to the different ways that we all choose to learn, but I’d have personally preferred fewer, longer exercises, focused upon teaching a few fundamental concepts in one fell swoop.
As an e-book, this comes in around 263 pages in length, comprising, quelle surprise, 57 discrete exercises (challenges), each increasing in complexity, building upon the preceding chapters.
So, in conclusion, whilst this is an excellent book, I’d definitely recommend that the reader either be completely new to computer programming, or, perhaps better still, read this in conjunction with other, more detailed, tutorials.
Out of 10, I’d give this 7, taking into account the reservations expressed previously.
Before I finish, I want to thank Becky Youe at BCS for kindly providing me with this book to review.
Review by Dave Hay
(originally posted http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/...)
Our friends at The British Computer Society (BCS) kindly sent me a copy of Exercises for Programmers: 57 Challenges to Develop Your Coding Skills by Brian P. Hogan a few weeks back.
This is available on Amazon but my e-book came via a different route, thanks to BCS.
The purpose of the book is to, via a series of exercises, teach the reader the fundamentals of computer programming. The book is language-neutral, so it makes no difference whether you choose to use C, Java, Python, Swift etc. as the focus is on teaching one how to solve a problem in code, rather than how to use a particular language.
Through a series of increasingly complex problems, the author coaches the reader in the art of problem-solving, demonstrating how one can output data, perform calculations, compare strings, develop re-usable functions, sort data, use public APIs etc.
This took me back to my student days, where the instructor would set an exercise, for example, write a programme to output the Fibonacci sequence, or print Pi to 32 decimal places etc.
Whilst this is a useful way to teach one HOW to programme, I found the exercises to be a little repetitive, and overly frustrating, perhaps because I’m not the ideal target audience i.e. I first learned to write computer programs more than 30 years ago, and I don’t program for a living.
Additionally, whilst the book does set out each problem clearly, it does not provide any example solutions, even for the most simple of problems. This means that there’s no obvious feedback loop between teacher and student. Again, it’s perhaps my bias, but I’d have preferred to see a few example solutions, showing how the problem might be solved.
Don’t get me wrong - this is a very useful book, and one that I’d definitely recommend to students of computing, but I’m not wholly convinced that it’d be the right tool for every job.
Perhaps it’s down to the different ways that we all choose to learn, but I’d have personally preferred fewer, longer exercises, focused upon teaching a few fundamental concepts in one fell swoop.
As an e-book, this comes in around 263 pages in length, comprising, quelle surprise, 57 discrete exercises (challenges), each increasing in complexity, building upon the preceding chapters.
So, in conclusion, whilst this is an excellent book, I’d definitely recommend that the reader either be completely new to computer programming, or, perhaps better still, read this in conjunction with other, more detailed, tutorials.
Out of 10, I’d give this 7, taking into account the reservations expressed previously.
Before I finish, I want to thank Becky Youe at BCS for kindly providing me with this book to review.
Review by Dave Hay
(originally posted http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/...)
February 21, 2021
A very good set of exercises to get comfortable in a new programming language. Would definitely solve these for every new programming language to look into. However, do not expect the book or the exercises in the book to improve your problem solving skills or to get you to an expert level in programming
June 19, 2018
Good way to get familiar with a new programming language when you don't want to waste time thinking about exercises to do. After this book you are well-equipped to tackle more complex projects in the language.
March 16, 2016
Exercises are very basic and easy for somebody who is already a programmer.
I expected something else from this book. I thought that there are exercises for programmers, requiring some more deep analysis to find a solution.
Exercises in this book are only for people who are starting their journey with programming.
I expected something else from this book. I thought that there are exercises for programmers, requiring some more deep analysis to find a solution.
Exercises in this book are only for people who are starting their journey with programming.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews