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Technical Books for a High School Library?
Doug Penny asks: "Our High school librarian has ask me to compile a list of computer/technical books for our library. I've seen references to this on Slashdot before, but all seem to be more college or professional related. Does anyone have some good suggestions for curious high school students? Thanks."
Learning books from O'Reilly are pretty good for just about anyone who is interested in programming.
DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF
Code Complete
Both should be easy enough for high schoolers to follow.
I wished I'd learned C back in high school...
Espicially for Perl. Pretty much all of them belong in a good tech library. Programming Perl, and the Perl Cookbook are literally ESSENTIAL. I can not stress that enough. If you have to buy any two perl books, get those. The other OReilly perl books, working with system administration, web administration, writing CGI scripts, and so on and so fourth, are good resources for more specialized applications.
A good non-OReilly alternative for Perl is Holzner's 'Perl Black Book'.
Enough about Perl, though (and more about OReilly): Practical C Programming, Running Linux, and any of their other 'Programming [insert language name here]' books.
Another good thing to have would be (printed) copies of the official Linux/UNIX/all-related-material manuals from their offical sources. The RedHat 8.0 manuals are espicially useful.
Throw in a book or two about python, C++, any of the sea of web-languages, and MAYBE JAVA. Only because (too) many people use it (for too many things).
Informatus Technologicus
RIP Mr. Stevens!
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
I would have to agree, especially with the upcoming release of Vol. four. This series tends to be quite dense in some parts, but it is a great reference.
Also, one might want to look at some of Knuth's TeX stuff. It is a good example of how successful an open standard can be.
The afore mentioned O'Reilly books are almost priceless, but to balence them, some introduction to computers books, like the TimeLife should be included. Not everybody checking out computers is going to know why C++ is to be prefered over C#. People might want to know what goes on inside, explained simply.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
IMHO, it's the best introduction to UNIX geared toward the perspective of a Windows or Mac user first coming to UNIX.
PYTHON by Chris Fehily (ISBN 0-201-74884-3)
This is a Peachpit Visual Quickstart Guide. It's actually quite good and better than the (now quite dated)
Learning Python.
Code Complete by Steve McConnell (ISBN 1-55615-484-4)
It's a little dated (examples are in Pascal, that's sooo 1989!) but the concepts of good code construction are still relevant.
The Little Schemer by Friedman and Felleisen (ISBN 0-262-56099-2)
It probably makes sense to introduce young geeks to a Lisp-y language early, before their brains solidify and it takes them years to grok it. This one pretty much assumes you have no knowledge, but it doesn't assume you're an idiot or a dummy.
Finally...
HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide by Musciano and Kennedy (ISBN 0-596-00026-X)
This is the O'Reilly Koala Book. It's quite good and is revised regularly. Older editions are still useful because, vanilla HTML hasn't changed much since 4.0.
People may clamor "Writing HTML isn't coding!". It doesn't matter. The fact is, the internet is pervasive in the life of a young techie. Like "build your own radio" in the 1930s and "mess around with a jalopy" in the 1950s, building your own website is a similar challenge.
Plus, HTML is a gateway drug. First you're writing webpages by hand, then you add a form, then you're copying a CGI script to process the form. Then you're learning Perl so you can write your own scripts. Or you're writing a Python script that scrapes websites. When you think about it, HTML is a gateway to networked computing...
Things to avoid...
Anything by Dietel & Dietel. Those funny ants on the cover hide the fact that these are overblown college textbooks that drain any fun out of learning the language.
Anything that has a version number after it. No kid wants to read a book about "Microsoft Word 97". It's already 6 years out of date.
My father is a blogger.
Highschoolers haven't had the kind of education in the 12 years of school they've had that you get in the first semester of college. :P
That said, highschool books have certain requirements. College books tend to assume extensive knowledge of materials usually covered in lecture. The higher level text books build on this assumption.
Except for college computer/technical books, which start dumb and end dumb. You want O'Reilly.
I can give you some recommendations for those interested in Web Design, though.
Lie, HÃ¥kon Wium, and Bert Bos. "Cascading Style Sheets: Designing For The Web". 2nd ed. [die MLA!] http://www.awl.com/cseng ISBN 0-201-59625-3
Zeldman, Jeffrey. "Taking Your Talents to the Web". Indiana: New Riders, 2001.
Strunk, William JR., and E.B. White. "The Elements Of Style". 4th ed. Massachusetts: Longman Publishers, 2000.
O'Reilly has volumes of text books good for introduction. They're thurough, don't skimp, and don't suffer from being stuffy or making bad assumptions about the reader's knowledge, other than stated in the preface.
Honest to god, in Highschool, I'd be more concerned about bringing the standards of the core courses up a fucking decent level.
Let's try science. Quantum Physics. I've got two books on my desk here that are good enough for twelve year olds.
Wolf, Fred Alan. "Parallel Universes". New York: Touchstone, 1990.
---. "Taking The Quantum Leap". New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
For English, that "Elements Of Style" book cited above is tiny. It's 105 pages, index and contents included. It's also 5"Ã--8.25"Ã--0.5", or 13cmÃ--21cmÃ--1.5cm, to use metric. Allow students to use it on tests, carry with them everywhere. It's gold. That's your text book for English grades 9â"12.
And what the fuck is with George Orwell's 1984 and Fahrenheit 451? They weren't even allowed in the library when I left Highschool. Ridiculous.
For creative writing, I highly recommend:
Burroway, Janet. "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft". New York: Longman Publishers, 2003.
Best creative writing book I've ever seen. It'll even blend in with your stuffy brown and black books, cleverly camouflaging a book with good content.
Stop talking down to your students. They're not dumb, they're just told they are by the tone of their teachers and told by their peers that's cool enough. Their parents and their teachers demand obediance, and abhor rebelious or independant thought, so their children are extremely vulnerable to suggestion by anyone who pretends authority. A good student questions. A good teacher admits their limits, knows that some of their students will be better than them, and hopes the student can surpass them, or fill in the gaps in the teacher's knowledge.
(tangent)
I had a memorable discussion with a counselor in highschool. A teacher had been wrong, and had pretty much told me to shut up when I tried to correct her. Then she sent me to the principal for "distruptive behavior". He couldn't make me understand that "she's the teacher, so she's in charge" etc, so he sent me to a counselor. She informed me about the "pecking order" and that I was at the bottom, so I should just be pecked, because she "worked hard to get where she was". Obviously, she was superior to me, and I should "grin and bear it".
I aquired my G.E.D., and I've been very happy since I started College. Opening the G.E.D. to non-vets was one of the best things the Government has done. Can you possibly imagine how much of a relief it was, to suddenly be met as a peer by the test instructor, and ever since?
Public education is not failing because it isn't offering the latest technology. Public education is failing because administrators are considered more important than teachers. Public education is failing because teachers become teachers just to be superior to 400 students for a year. Public education is failing because education is only a byproduct of the atmosphere among the staff. The pecking order comes first.
Public education would never have produced "The Elements of Style".
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.