This introduction to programming places computer science in the core of a liberal arts education. It focuses on the program design process. This approach fosters a variety of skills - critical reading, analytical thinking, creative synthesis, and attention to detail - that are important for everyone, not just future computer programmers. The book exposes readers to two ideas. First, it presents program design guidelines that show the reader how to analyze a problem statement; how to formulate concise goals; how to make up examples; how to develop an outline of the solution, based on the analysis; how to finish the program; and how to test. Each step produces a well-defined intermediate product. Second, the book comes with a programming environment explicitly designed for beginners. The environment grows with the readers as they master the material in the book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of programming tasks. All the book's support materials are available for free on the Web. The Web site includes the environment, teacher guides, exercises for all levels, solutions, and additional projects.

Author Biography

Matthias Felleisen is Professor of Computer Science at Rice University. He is the coauthor of A Little Java, A Few Patterns (MIT Press, 1998), The Little MLer (MIT Press, 1998), The Little Schemer (MIT Press, fourth edition, 1996), and The Seasoned Schemer (MIT Press, 1996), Robert Bruce Findler is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Rice University. Matthew Flatt is Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah. Shriram Krishnamurthi is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brown University.