How to Count: Programming for Mere Mortals
Programming for Mere Mortals is a series of books designed to introduce the concepts of programming from the ground up to a reader who has never written a line of code.
Unlike most programming books which aim to teach you a particular language or operating system, this series focuses on the core fundamentals that are common to programming any computer.
The first volume, How to Count (approx. 70 pages), introduces you in a laid-back, conversational tone to math concepts that are essential to becoming a successful programmer. Topics include:
- Numeric bases (decimal, binary, hexadecimal)
- Signed vs. unsigned numbers
- Units of data measure
- Floating point and fixed point arithmetic
This short, easily understood book will quickly get you thinking like a programmer. Additional volumes to follow.
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Errata for 1st edition:
P. 41: The word “saying” is omitted before the phrase “something that’s actually pretty simple”.
P. 50: Recent versions of Mac OS X will display drive capacities that mirror the marketing description. This, rather than benevolence on the part of hard drive manufacturers, may explain why 2 TB drives now appear as 2 TB on the desktop.
P. 51: 1 TiB is of course equal to 1,024 GiB (not 1,024 TiB).
P. 54: Contrary to this page’s claim, data transfer is more commonly measured with 1 kilobit equal to 1,000 bits. This slightly changes the outcome of the conversion to kBps that follows on page 56.
P. 60: The “moved right 9 places” number should read: 3,140,000,000.