In this day and age of computers, the ability to write and under-stand programming is an invaluable skill. Computers now surround us—everything from our high-tech smartphones and laptops, to our microwaves and cars use programmes written in lines and lines of code (specialized languages that computers can understand). Marc Scott and Mick Marston do a wonderful job introducing this world—while aimed at young children, the book serves as an equally good guide for an older novice. The book combines detailed descriptions with pictograms to give step by step instructions to understanding and using two programming languages—Scratch and Python. Scratch is a free, visual language which is designed to allow children to learn to create games, stories and animations and serves as a stepping stone to the more advanced languages. By contrast, Python the ‘grown up’ counterpart in the Coding world, is widely used by organizations such as Wikipedia, Apple and Google due to its simple syntax.
November 2016, volume 40, No 11