Texts on fundamentals of programming/computer science

[Peter Desnoyers]

In article <1203 at microsoft.UUCP> w-colinp at microsoft.uucp (Colin Plumb) writes:
>It isn't C, and it's pretty heavy going alone, but "The Structure and
>Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson & Sussman (the textbook
>for the first year CS intro for CS and EE programs at MIT) will teach
>almost anyone a hell of a lot.  This goes for rank beginners through
>Dennis Ritchie.  The C-Scheme compiler is available from MIT.
>

I second the motion. It uses Scheme (actually a small subset that can
be taught in a class or two) to cover most of the common programming
paradigms. The approach to problem sets in the class at MIT was great
- they would give you lots of code and you would then have to figure
it out and then modify or extend it. Much more of a real-world
approach than writing everything from scratch. 

				Peter Desnoyers