How to Think Like A Coder Without Even Trying by Jim Christian (Batsford Publishing)

Our second book on coding today is a great mental preparation for learning to code...
Most coding books leap straight in at the deep end, getting you started on demo code and giving you examples.

In Jim Christian's awesome "How to Think like a Coder" you'll learn a lot more than what coding is all about, in fact it's like a bit of preparatory brain training before you make your first decision on what language you'd like to learn to program in.

A fact-filled journey through the history of programming, but also a really fantastic reference for the various terms and common ideas you'll encounter regardless of your choice of coding preference, the book dishes up some brilliant spreads full of information to get your mind in the right place.

Left Brain? Right Brain? You'll need a bit of both to be an effective programmer.

With fantastic illustration, Jim takes us on a whirlwind tour of our own brains, describing the need for both a mathematical and analytical approach to problem solving, but also a fantastic dose of creativity to really think around and solve particular coding issues.

If, When, Why, What? How much have you got?

With the huge rise in interest in 'real' programming over the last few years, it's actually been fantastic to enrol Charlotte in Computer Club and let her have her first dabble with proper text-based programming languages like Python and Ruby.

Computers are indeed everywhere. You're probably wearing one, carrying one and definitely will use them at some point in your life so be prepared!

Though this book doesn't give any direct code examples it'll certainly give you plenty to think about, and there are tons of references in here to dive into for a bit of online learning once you've finished off the book.

Really nicely presented, this is a fantastic purchase for any would-be programmers who just don't know where to start.

"How to Think like a Programmer without even trying" by Jim Christian is out now, published by Batsford (kindly supplied for review).