A Programmer's Guide to Computer Science: A virtual degree for the self-taught developer

A Programmer's Guide to Computer Science distills a huge portion of the theoretical side of a comp sci degree into about 200 pages. It is very much a textbook, with some (very light!) math, and theory that you won't be using in your day-to-day unless you're in research, quantum computing, etc. That said, a lot of the information *is* useful to have as a background.I picked this one up as a refresher since it's been over a decade (*ulp*) since I went to school. A lot of the material was very familiar, and some stuff that I struggled with back then was made clearer in this book.A Programmer's Guide to Computer Science isn't a particularly compelling read. It's very dry, delivering facts, diagrams, bits of math, and a little pseudocode to get the point across. But the information is very good and I would recommend you suffer through this one. It's only about 200 pages. 10 pages a day and you'll be done in a month-ish.

The author very clearly states in the beginning that covering all of the topics mentioned in the book cannot be covered completely by the book, both in the beginning and at the end. This is a much appreciated note! Do no expect to get everything you need from a single book, ever. It's a very complete overview of topics that I'd: 1.) heard of but did not genuinely understand, or 2.) never known about. I really appreciate the way these things were introduced to me. I will be buying the second volume!

I wish it had more code samples but it’s a great small book while I’m learning DS&A

As a self-taught programmer, this book is exactly what I was looking for. It gives you a run down of the important stuff that you'll need for interviews, and to be a *good* programmer. It isn't comprehensive, and as other reviewers said, it's not supposed to be. However, it is comprehensive enough to guide you on your journey, and nice to have while you dig into other resources (and to serve as a reference/reinforce materials).If you're a self-taught programmer, a bootcamp grad, or even if you have a degree, this book is a must.A note to the author: I would personally love to see this as an entire series, and I would definitely buy all of them. I'm aware of volume 2 coming out, and can't wait for that, but I'd also love to see different volumes for different areas. "A Programmer's Guide to X" series would definitely make a killing and help many people!

I really enjoyed reading this book and found it really useful as a refresher for topics I already know and as a quick and useful introduction to topics that I didn't know well. It's also really good for people who would like read introductions about theoretical computer science where rigid mathematics doesn't show. This volume examine (1) the basics of computer science such as Algorithms and Data Structures and (2) the basics of theoretical computer science: Complexity Theory and the well-known computation model Turing Machine.

Having no background in computer science, but in wanting to become a professional programmer, I initially took a Coursera course on algorithms and data structures and after a week became overwhelmed. This book, however, was exactly the approach I needed. Dr. Springer's examples and explanation of the problems, to me, show that he must have really listened to what his audience was going through and provides in this book a conversational approach to learning complex topics.

This book is smaller than I thought (I didn't read carefully) but covers lots of good stuff that appears to be just what I need to fill in the gaps. However, the print quality is not so great. The pages are rough but more importantly I tooks like whatever was printing this was running low on toner when mine was printed. It's very faded and washed out, which is going to make it harder for my old eyes to read. Not sure if they are all like that or I got a bad one.

Great review/concise summary of important topics in computer science. Might be overwhelming for someone who has never studied CS at all. Was a great refresher for me on topics I'd studied long ago, and a good introduction to others I'd never learned.