Foreword

This book happened because the daughter (hi, Kylie) of a friend (hi, Ross) asked me what I do. As it happened, I had my laptop with me at the time, so I showed her. Kylie was 15 at the time, so she promptly lost interest. I was working as a web developer (writing middleware and database code rather than front-end code), so I explained that Facebook worked in a similar way. That got her attention. It pays to know one's audience.

That experience gave me the idea of writing a book to get young people started on programming. Later that year, when Apress asked me to write a book, I managed to talk them into writing one for beginners.

So, if you want to try writing software, this book is for you. It's by no means an exhaustive explanation ...

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