Through a series of simple examples and exercises, the reader is gradually introduced to the essentials of good programming. The examples are carefully constructed to make the introduction of new concepts as simple as possible, while at the same time using sample programs that make sense to someone who works with language as data. Many of these programs can be used immediately with minimal or no modification.

The text is accompanied by exercises at the end of each chapter and all the code is available from the companion website: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hammond.