A is for Array

In a serious note. I have bought that one for my small daughter who is just 2 and thought it is going to be kind of funny alphabet book for that age on computer topic. Apparently it's exactly like that. First there is too much text and pics are not that impressive for toddlers. So no match for that age.Well I have another daughter, which is 5 now, I thought I can try with her. And on the first page of this book I read to her the first sentence which states that array is a 'data structure', etc. Ogh. Obviously the first question was 'What is "data structure", Daddy'. Here, I'm not even talking about page where it talks about YAML.So, this book can be a kind of joke for an adult, but definitely is not for children. Also, I would say it's too expensive to paperback 'joke'.

A is for Array is a fantastic book for beginning programmers or children. I am using this book to attempt to influence my friends' children in positive ways, and also explore the impact book-giving can have on future development. For example, some of my friends have had babies recently:For 4 out of 5 of these friends, I bought some combination of Baby's First Programming books. Usually it included this book.The 5th child got nothing, because he is the Control child.

Let's be honest: this is a gag gift. The value of this book is in the one minute after you give it to your programmer friend who is a new parent. The recipient is unlikely to even see all of the pages before they stop chuckling and set it down for good, thinking of which programmer friend they're going to re-gift it to next. It is definitely not a programming resource.

I enjoyed that this book covers a wide variety of topics including databases "J is for join" (SQL), programming "O is for object" (object oriented behavior), and data structures "A is for array" among others. However, the concepts are presented at various levels of abstraction making them feel inconsistent and marred in nuance, "E is for explode" (PHP specific construct) is one example. Additionally I found the "D is for deconstructor" subtext of "Let your mom clean up after you. That's her job." to be very sexist and added no value to the entry or related to the discussion of a deconstructor.

The title says it pretty well. The illustration pages are cute, but the accompanying text isn't very kid friendly. Also, E should be for Exception, not Explode...

I've been programming since I was a kid, and now program for a living. I think it is important for kids to learn programming and this is a good introductory book for toddlers. Pictures a fun and word descriptions make teaching vocabulary easy.

I don't know the first thing about programming but I bought this book as a gift for my nephew who is a programmer. His first response upon seeing the book was, "This is absolutely brilliant!" He was thrilled and couldn't wait to read it with the little ones in the family.

Seriously, the information in this book is spot on and describes complex issues with humor and ease that even my non-technical wife can understand. My boy is 1 and I read this to him all the time (he loves the pictures too). Great job Brandon!

One of the great joys in having a child is being able to teach them new things. I bought this for my daughter and, even though she's still too young (15 months) to understand it, I look forward to being able to teach her her ABCs in a way that relates to my job, so that she'll understand what I do. I also firmly believe that in future, it will be impossible not to be able to exist without this knowledge. Our kids today will be exposed to a level of computing that we can only imagine in 5, 10, 20 years time. Put them on the right path with this. Start them really, really early!!! :D

I had really high hopes for this book - as a programmer and a new father, I'm always on the look out for books that will help me one day teach my son to program.There are some excellent features of the book - it has some really nice analogies between programming concepts and ideas that kids can relate to. The illustration is also good and fun. However, ultimately it just doesn't work as a kid's book - it's full of really technical words and concepts that make the child-friendly analogies somewhat pointless.

An amazing book for my little programmer in training - Its never too early to learn the basic terminology and introductory concepts!

Not sure who this is aimed at, of little value to anyone as far as I can see. Just a list of random definitions. Disappointed.