Think Like a Programmer

When you allow yourself to get frustrated—and I use the word “allow” deliberately—you are, in effect, giving yourself an excuse to continue to fail.

You should think of this book as an obstacle course for your brain. Obstacle courses build strength, stamina, and agility and give the trainer confidence. By reading through the chapters and applying the concepts to as many exercises as you can, you’re going to build confidence and develop problem-solving skills that can be used in any programming situation. In the future, when you are faced with a difficult problem, you’ll know whether you should try going over, under, or through it.

We will call the missing skill problem solving, the ability to take a given problem description and write an original program to solve it.