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    Cover of A Fortran coloring book

    A Fortran coloring book

    Roger Emanuel Kaufman · 1978

    A whimsical introduction to the FORTRAN programming language, presented as a tongue-in-cheek coloring book. Despite (or perhaps because of) its unconventional nature, it's generally regarded as one of the best FORTRAN textbooks ever written.

    Programming
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    6recommend
    17mentions
    12people
    2010–2026years
    47% recommend53% neutral

    Mentions per year

    201020122014201620182020202220242026

    What Hacker News says

    1. ghaffMar 2022
      The FORTRAN Coloring Book is quite the amusing little programming book for the late 70s. https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~kaufman1/FortranColoringBook/Colo...

      What makes it even more amusing is that people on this forum, even if they don't know FORTRAN would find it ludicrously elementary considering it was actually the textbook for an MIT class at the time. (It was basically a programming course for non-CS/EE engineers and the assumption was basically that they had never touched a computer before.)

      thread
    2. pjmorrisFeb 2022
      Despite high interest in learning to program, I was confused and bored in my first (FORTRAN) programming course. Browsing at the local bookstore I found 'The FORTRAN Coloring Book' and took it home. Kaufman's approach unlocked some kind of door for me, and the effort of going to find my own resources did as well. Forty years on, 'The Fortran Coloring Book' sits on the shelf next to 'Software Tools in Pascal' (same bookstore a few months later) and many of the other books listed in this thread (e.g. TAOCP, SICP, UPE, OSTEP.)
      thread
    3. jhbadgerApr 2019
      If you like this sort of thing, here are some others in a similar humorous style for other languages.

      1. Kaufman, Roger. A FORTRAN Coloring Book (probably the first funny programming book -- from 1978).

      2. Lipovača, Miran. Learn You A Haskell for Great Good.

      3. Hebert, Fred. Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good (inspired by the Haskell book).

      4. Felleisen, Matthias. Realm of Racket (basically Land of Lisp for Racket. Oddly, nobody's done a "Commonwealth of Clojure" or "Society of Scheme" yet.)

      thread
    4. raoulrOct 2017
      In a previous century I learned to program using Roger Kaufman's "A FORTRAN Coloring Book". It uses a very similar technique (and style!). Here is a link to the internet archive: https://archive.org/stream/9780262610261
      thread
    5. pjmorrisOct 2017
      I credit 'A FORTRAN Coloring Book' with saving my first computing class, long, long ago. I bought it as a supplement to the textbook and lectures, as the lightbulb wasn't quite coming on for me through those. Among other things, the book taught me that getting a second perspective could sometimes be just what you need. I wound up acing the class... and finding a career. My copy sits in a place of honor on my bookshelf.
      thread
    6. pjmorrisJun 2017
      'A Fortran Coloring Book', Kaufmann (MIT Press) 'Starting Forth', and 'Thinking Forth' by Leo Brodie.

      I'd say the 'Head First' books are modern equivalents with a similar spirit.

      thread

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