Introduction
I began writing my very first book in September 1972. It dealt with computer concepts and was meant as a high school math textbook to teach programming. It used APL, which stands for A Programming Language, a highly scientific language for the computer. At the time, a few publishing companies expressed interest in the book but as the days passed, they declined in getting the book on the market. I wasn’t completely discouraged.
Their excuse was that there were enough of these types of books out there and I accepted that. At the same time I saw a dilemma insofar as books written about fairly common subject matter would not get printed for this same reason but revolutionary topics probably wouldn’t make it to print either because the publisher wouldn’t want to risk getting into an untested, unknown area. I never did submit it to a far-out press, even though this was just after Woodstock.
I did use the book when I taught a programming course in high school shortly thereafter, in addition to the regular APL textbook. However, once I left teaching the book was stored away gathering dust, rarely to be perused. Over time I realized that there was no chance that it would ever get published in its existing form. I also thought that it could be revised, with the original language of APL replaced by a common, understandable language. In this way it could have relevance. Of course, that meant almost a complete rewrite of the book.
In August 2001 on a Sunday afternoon I decided to dig out the book and redo it. I went through it but decided not to do it. The next day I changed my mind. I wound up revitalizing and resuscitating it using a generic language. This turned out to be a language that I created, utilizing features of many computer languages that I had come in contact with over the years. Since all languages do basically the same thing but by different means, I took all the benefits of each language and combined them into my language. The book would now be used to illustrate what computer programming is all about to people unfamiliar with the subject.
The intent of this book is to reach two types of people. The first are those who would like to get an idea of what programming is all about since that may be what they want to do as a profession. The other person to be reached is that individual who has little computer knowledge but would like some insight into what programming involves. This breakdown includes a great number of people.
By no means is this book meant to be a computer text but rather a means of spreading knowledge about computer programming. My goal is to make clear each topic presented but anyone reading the work need not feel disappointed if some area of the text is not completely comprehended. However, by the time someone is through with the book, it is my goal that either they will decide to pursue this field or at least have some basic understanding of what programming is all about.
Despite the possibility of getting this book published so many years ago when I first wrote it, there were a few things missing. As I mentioned, the language was too difficult for most readers to comprehend. Also, since it was my first book, it was missing what could be found in the books I wrote after it, namely at least a small amount of humor. The subject matter may have limited that aspect, but as I have found, there are very few books where levity can’t be interjected.
In general, it is probably better that the book didn’t get published at that time. It really wasn’t ready to come into print. However, when I revised it in 2001, all these limitations would be gone. Half a dozen years later, the work still wasn’t published. I did some more modifications in January 2010 while staying in my cousin Jim’s town home in Sun City Center, Florida. Incidentally, I have at least three cousins with that name. Then in December 2011, I decided to publish it as an ebook, resulting in a great deal more editing. Since I had created my own computer language, that created the biggest holdup. I felt for the longest time that the programs – few though they were – had to be thoroughly checked over since they couldn’t really be tested with a computer. I needed to put in the effort to get this task done.
Somehow, I came up with a new idea. Every program found in this book is here for instructional purposes. It is meant to display computer concepts and who really cares if there are a few places where something may fail or could be done better. In reality, these programs have nowhere near the bugs that you will find on the Internet or even on your PC, each of which is rushed into production without checking. As you can tell, that approach was not done in this book. After all, quite a few years had passed since I started writing it. For that reason, any problems that you encounter in this work are truly minor and can easily be overlooked. If you are a person who likes to correct others by finding tiny mistakes in books, I need only remind you that every book that was ever written has at least one error, of some kind or another. Don’t waste your time.
As far as the book title that I first chose, this goes back to my days at Binghamton University when I was studying for a degree in computer science. My fellow students and I worked together as a team to get projects done. The effort required was intense but we had a good sense of humor about it. In fact while going through the degree program one of my study-partners remarked, “Six months ago I could not spell computer programmer – now I are one!”
We all got a laugh out of that, and I loved that title. However, I decided that there wasn’t enough room on the cover to put all those words – if I used a smaller font, not many people could read it – so I thought about another one that would be better. This didn’t come easy, but eventually I settled on Computer For Smart People. I hope you find this treatise to be enjoyable and enlightening.