Learn to Program with Small Basic: An Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math Paperback – April 16, 2016

Just what I needed.

This book is very good and easy to read.

I have been programming a very long time as well. Two-level table of contents in the front and detailed index in the back make it easy to find out what is covered. The instruction proceeds through many tiny lessons and examples. I bought this book and "The Developer's Reference Guide to Microsoft Small Basic. Both are useful to get up to speed with Small Basic. Learn to Program ... is much more useful given all of the help to look things up.

After going through the book then search for -Small Basic Collision physics, Soko, and Tetris. to download the complete source code.

Great book... Lots of info

Although a scan of the table of contents may make the book sound like a Computer Science 101 text, it is the structure within those chapters and Marji and Price’s engaging writing style that really sets this book apart. It is clearly written with an eye towards a middle school audience. The text is easy to read and filled with little jokes and gags that are guaranteed to make the coolest 13-year-old roll her eyes (that’s a good thing). But beyond the standard descriptions of concepts and examples, my favorite part of the book by far is that each chapter provides the reader with challenges that utilize the new content introduced in the chapter and draw on what has been previously learned.So often, computer programming books are filled with math-based challenges (count by 2s . . . now count by 3s . . . find the prime number . . . is the number a square) that would put a classroom of middle school students (and their teacher) to sleep. These challenges, on the other hand, keep their audience in mind. They are engaging and creative and appropriate for a middle school aged audience. Further, they leverage the website for the book to provide resources, hints and solutions. Readers can access comment-only “starter” files to get them moving and provide a roadmap for their projects or, if they get hopelessly stuck, can access solutions — all online. I particularly like the fact that the solutions do not appear in the book itself. That would make it too easy to simply page to the back and type in the solution. By requiring the reader to take the additional step of hopping online and navigating to the correct URL before seeing a solution, readers are encouraged to keep trying to solve the challenges on their own.In Learn to Program with Small Basic, Marji and Price have accomplished something very difficult. They have created an outline of basic computer science principles that is appropriate for middle schoolers in a text based programming language. Many of the resources that are currently being produced are of the drag-and-drop, block-based graphical structure. While I believe that these are a great way to get younger students interested in coding, the Small Basic programming language and its intuitive IDE has worked incredibly well in my middle school classroom. In my end of course surveys, a strong majority of students (nearly 70%!) recommended that I limit the use of block-based programming languages in order to provide them with even more opportunities to do text-based programming with Small Basic. I am certain that Learn to Program with Small Basic will be a trusted companion as I expand this portion of my course and I am thrilled that such a resource is available.

Small Basic is a pretty good program to use, after Scratch or Code.org (the drag and drop coding) and before you go on to Python or Java. This book is the best at showing you what you can do with Small Basic!You'll find a ton of tutorials throughout the book, challenges in the back of each chapter, and even more online resources to keep learning, including tests for teachers and parents to use! Also, all the big programs in the book have their code available for download (templates and final solutions), so that you can see what you did wrong (or need to do next). I love the amount of resources they provided to help parents, teachers, and students!

So far, it is a 'one star.' Chap 1, which I have not passed, problem ex. 3. instructs to 'display your name in message box using GraphicsWindow object. (HInt: use the Showmessage ()method.)' Well, the previous chapter does not discuss a 'showmessage method.' I reread every word to make sure that I did not miss anything. I understand that the intent is to encourage the student to work at problem solving, but when the problem exceeds the tools given, then you are only encouraging the student to quit. How many times have I encountered this in college textbooks in which the writer obviously thinks that they are somehow helping the student. Most times, the students will just quit and think that the subject is not for them. It is frustrating to see the same attitude in what is basically a young person's starter book.Then I went to the recommended webpage to download the resources and answers. Be aware that it is a SALES page for the publisher, not specifically a help page for the consumer. The link to the resource download does work, but when I unzipped them, which, fortunately, can be opened with explorer, I found that the items do not work. When I click on them, the icon shows that something is happening, the icon on the task bar will flash, but nothing happens. Even when the Small Basic is open, nothing happens. I went back to the publisher's SALES page, the contact link did not work. No other contact information could be found.If you have access to programmers or tutors, this is probably a very good beginner book. They can answer your questions. As it is for me, relying on the authors and publishers to do a good job, I would not recommend this book. As I tell EVERY how-to writer that is wiling to listen, before you publish, let your target audience try it out, watch where they get confused, DO NOT HELP THEM, instead fix the point of confusion. DO NOT ask the experienced, they already know how to do it and will not see the sticking points. So many times have I seen, when asked to try a project, glance over the instructions and then simply do the project, and say, 'That was fine.' When a person already has the knowledge, the answers are obvious, or, as I am tired of hearing, 'common sense.'Take my rant for what it is worth. This is one of the better books on programming, but it does have its problems. If you have zero experience with coding and do not have access to tutors, I would recommend taking a class instead. This book will only collect dust.