preface
When I started learning programming in the 1990s, I didn’t have access to the sort of resources that are easy to find today. I didn’t have proper internet access, and the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, so I relied primarily on trial and error. The library at my junior high school was (sadly) not stocked with computer science books.
It wasn’t until many years later that I had access to learning resources such as books. At that point, I had already learned quite a bit merely by reading source code, experimenting, and asking questions on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and forums. My teachers were mostly kind strangers on the internet, and I am grateful for their help.
Luckily, learning programming has never been easier, as innumerable high-quality resources are available today. In writing this book, I wanted to create something that I would have found helpful while I was learning programming. I hope that this book will benefit you and help you become a better programmer or achieve your goals, much as those kind strangers on the internet did for me so many years ago.