[ap-compsci] Comp Sci book suggestions for gifted student

Hello Doug, as a precious gift to a talented and open minded spirit, I cheerfully suggest you the following two alternatives: 1. A novel software, named REBOL, which can easily be dubbed as the new grand cru millésimé of the new millenium software breed ("grand cru millésimé" is a special french expression used exclusively for describing the very most great wines from France). Read more below about it. 2. A self-studying package written by Brian Harvey from the MIT which is excellent from many points of view. I bought it for myself for last Christmas and it is a joy to read and try. Computer Science Logo Style 2/e - 3 vol. set Brian Harvey Volume 1: Symbolic Computing Volume 2: Advanced Techniques Volume 3: Beyond Programming MIT Press February 1997 ISBN 0-262-58151-5 1066 pp., 134 illus. $95.00/£65.95 (PAPER) Even if it is based on the Logo language for teaching symbolic computing - which at first doesn't seem very prised in the business or even in the teaching world except for turtle programming, it is nevertheless a marvelous pedagogical tool for teaching many of the high end issues about computing, like gaming strategies, list computing and related data structures, AI and other non digit intensive symbolic tasks. The complete set of 3 books is only 95 $ USD and it is worth its weight in gold for for any serious student who aspires to go farther in the quest for knowing more about computers and many of other more advanced uses than those for which a first or second CS course generally teaches. ------------------------------- Now come back for a moment to the first gift suggestion I proposed to you at the begining of this message. I could only suggest you to offer your talented student a commercial version of the novel - but yet not very prevalent on the market - REBOL interpreter in its VIEW/PRO incarnation. So this will be relatively affordable for what this product has to offer since it is priced at 99 $ USD. Please read below as I presented you what is REBOL in as brief as possible a family tour of the REBOL language. REBOL as found some inspiration from Lisp and Logo for syntax and basic facilities but it adds many novelties by its own. Ir has been designed for more than a decade long - from his own confession - by a great OS and language designer : Carl Sassenrath. Carl was formerly known for the design of the Amiga Os while he worked for Commodore Business Machines. REBOL is a true portable and very sophisticated computing engine that loads itself over many known OSes - even some portable ones, so easing any scripting task - and normalizing them too!. In fact it is actually ported to more than 40 OS/CPUs mixes (available for all Windows variants including WinCE, APPLE MacOS, IBM AIX, OS/2and OS/400, Linux 5 & 6 Lib for Intel x86 processors, Linux and UNIX BSD for DEC Alpha, PPC, 68K, Sparc, StrongArm and Mips processors, SUN Solaris, QNX, SCO, SGI, BEOS, AMIGA). REBOL also natively supports around 40 datatypes including calendar types (date, time), OS related types(file, folder), data structure elements (serie, list, tuple), graphics related types (XY-pair) and 14 Internet protocols (tcp, ftp, http, daytime, pop, imap, smtp, etc...). As a bonus, REBOL also supports native compression while encryption and sound support comes only with the PRO version !!! REBOL comes in many variants that are all very efficient and take almost no footprint at all to install (only about 280k for REBOL/Core and 540k for the REBOL/VIEW). The REBOL/VIEW variant is the one which offers a GUI support in addition to the console mode of the REBOL/Core product. See below for other details that make them different form each other. While some variants of REBOL are free and can be used for real development, deployment and regular use - on a non-commercial basis - this is the case for the REBOL/Core and the REBOL/VIEW products, other variants cost something going from 99 $ USD (for the REBOL/VIEW/PRO which adds 2D native graphics engine, external apps call and some other facilities described below) to 349 $ USD (for the top of the line REBOL/Command which adds native and ODBC database drivers, external apps call encryption and many other facilities also described shortly below). More recent in the REBOL family is the REBOL/IOS that offers a framework for supporting the development of collaborative tasks in REBOL - that is client server apps for support of P2P sharing. This one also comes ready with nearly 20 functional collaborative apps. See the http://rebol.com/ios-intro.html for getting more specific information about this last one. REBOL/IOS is much more costly too than other members of the family - 2000 $ USD for 10 users and 99 $ USD for any other additional one - but after a 3 months free try period, I agree that it REBOL/IOS is really worth its weight of gold. Everybody can ask for free to get a trial IOs client which will link with their test IOS server as you conduct your eveluation. For completeness, here is a very short description of the REBOL products line taken from the download page of the REBOL web site: http://rebol.com/download.html 1- REBOL/IOS For Collaborative Applications (Evaluation available) An extensive platform for secure, realtime communication, file synchronization, and shared applications. Built on REBOL's unique X Internet distributed application technology. More information (http://rebol.com/ios-intro.html). 2- REBOL/View (REBOL/Core plus native Graphical User Interface). Version 1.2 Feature summary (http://rebol.com/view-info.html). Downloads and installs in seconds. Free for noncommercial use. REBOL/View/Pro 1.2 add robust encryption, library calls to external DLLs, sound, and shell access. 3- REBOL/Core The foundation of REBOL. Console only, no graphics. Version 2.5 Includes the REBOL interpreter, Internet protocols, compression, dialecting, 40 built-in datatypes, and more. Feature summary (http://rebol.com/core-info.html). Downloads in seconds. No installation required. Free for noncommercial use. 4- REBOL/Command For Enterprises and Professionals Version 2.0 REBOL/Command provides a powerful engine for client and server applications. Based on REBOL/Core, REBOL/Command adds access to external libraries (DLLs), shell commands, launching external applications, and database access through Oracle(tm) and ODBC based databases. Command also includes SSL secure sockets library for HTTPS access, fast CGI serving, additional database support and numerous fixes and enhancements. Read more (http://rebol.com/command.html). Hope it will be of some interest and usefulness to you and your talented student... Regards, Gerard Cote CS Teacher Cegep de Ste-Foy Quebec City Canada P.S. Sorry for the lengthy content but I really think this novel REBOL scripting language really has to be known better by as many other CS teachers as is possible. This is only so that we can offer a unified view of what is available on the market and of the many alternatives that exist other than the usual paths like COBOL, VB, C, C++, JAVA, Lisp, Scheme, etc... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Burbank" <[dburbank--brooksschool--org]> To: "AP Computer Science" <[ap-compsci--lyris--collegeboard--com]> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 10:23 PM Subject: [ap-compsci] Comp Sci book suggestions for gifted student

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