Question

Hey hi ... I'm a student from india and I'm about enter college... Can any one suggest me some books which gives an introduction to computer science ... Basics of computer science ..

Thanks ..

Answer 1

This one is definitely good, but I'm not sure if you'll find it easy: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

Answer 2

Learning Python, 4th Edition, Mark Lutz, O'Reilly Media, will give you a pretty good start if you want to learn Python.

Answer 3

Well, the one mentioned by carlsmith will help you learn one of the programming languages, but it won't explain problems of computer science - it won't even explain why you need a programming language to begin with and what it is.

On the other hand, if you start an introductory course at MIT OCW it may end up being a useful resource, because it's a very good book on its own.

Answer 4

What knowak says is true, CS and programming are different disciplines, though, in practice, if you do one, you'll always end up doing a bit of the other. It does really depend on what you want to achieve. If you're at college, they'll have some stuff they'll want you to use and it's best to just build on that with your own studies.

I would personally recommend looking at Python, HTML, CSS and Javascript, perhaps with something like App Engine if you're looking to get your ideas realised and out there sometime soon. If you would rather focus on the science, to be fair, I wouldn't know what to recommend.

I was trying to be helpful, but I guess I haven't really answered your question properly. It may be worth mentioning that O'Reilly are your general first port of call for any technical books. Frankly, download a torrent full of pdfs and then buy the ones you really read. Good documentation's not something you only read once, nor something you want to keep having to read on your computer, so you'll always end up paying the publisher soon enough. You just make sure you know what you're buying.

Anyway, all the best.