| I opened it up thinking, "wow, I might finally get a good idea of how to configure my old Awesome install." From the first bits I read (up to the arithmetic bit), I think it falls into the pitfall of rambling about boring stuff and not getting straight into it. Yeah, aspiring programmers need to know the difference between a comment and a string. Do they need to see a several page explanation of a comment and a string put in different places? Hell no. Do they need to see how their script can do the same things a basic calculator does? If they're learning programming, then credit them with some intelligence. How about a basic app that does something useful? We have so many APIs available to use now, and while it might be difficult to put them in a printed book (the API might not be around forever), I can think of few things more engaging than, say, replacing the 'Hello world' with a simple Twitter timeline fetching script. Through that one example you can explain functions, types, variables, control structures, and documentation, and establish a solid base for delving deeper into the language and what you can do. This will of course test the skill of the author more than it will test the patience of the eager learner. No bad thing. |