Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science

This is a very basic, but very important book for an introductory course in computer science based on Scheme. If you are trying to learn the basics of the Scheme language, this book is for you.

I have been programming for many years in languages such as Assembler,C, C++ and Python. I found I had not many difficulties with getting the concepts of Assembler and C, but concerning C++ and Python there were many things in these languges which I was not able to use effectively, since I did not understand the concepts. That is where Simply Scheme is such a great book. It explains quickly and easily ideas such as recursion, vectors, trees and general symbolic programming. It also helps with terminology, giving names to things I had been doing for years, but had not defined. I would suggest this book as a great step to those who can doing many things in lower level languages, but want to extend their effeciency. I do not think I would ever use the Scheme language as such, but I will certainly use what I have learned in this book for my programming.

I read this book in preparation for a computer science cource (taught by one of it's authors). I chose the book because the course was taught in Scheme, and I had not encountered the language before. I must say that this is an excellent book. While it may use some non-standard extensions to the language, in general, it does a good job of teaching Scheme. I feel that after I read the book, I was thorougly prepared to read SICP, the main text in my comp sci course. The non-technical and sometimes humorous style made Simply Scheme an easy reading, and allowed me to concentrate on the concepts rather than the jargon.

A great book to start you off with Scheme, and functional programming. The approach is slightly different from most other Scheme introductory texts, and that makes this book an ideal sequel for all those students that were exposed to Logo as their first programming language. (By this I don't mean those that used turtle to draw nice shapes on the screen, but rather those that have read author's Logo books.) Brian Harvey starts off by introducing Logo procedures into Scheme (word, sentence, first, butfirst...), but don't let this mislead you into thinking that the book is trivial. Book slowly builds up to a spreadsheet and database projects. Full of interesting examples, and very witty. Five chapters on recursion are a gem.

Hey kids, this book is kinda good. It teaches Scheme in a clear and understandable way, without falling back to silly "Scheme for dummies" language. I can recommend it.