Wallace Wang - Beginning Programming For Dummies

by Wallace Wang

Beginning Programming For Dummies, 4th Edition

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Copyright 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006932692

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-08870-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Wallace Wang is one of many carbon-based life forms currently populating the planet Earth. He began his working career by going to college and getting a good job only to find that a college education never guaranteed you a good job and most good jobs actually stink.

So faced with the prospect of spending the rest of his waking life in a caffeine-induced stupor coupled with shots of alcohol and gambling to dull the frustration of a dead-end job, he decided to pursue one of many dreams by becoming a writer. First starting out writing magazine articles for a local San Diego computer magazine, he soon graduated to writing for national publications and book publishers as well.

After nearly 20 years of writing full-time, hes still pursuing a variety of different dreams besides continuing book and magazine writing. Hes still bouncing around comedy clubs around Michigan, Las Vegas, and San Diego, performing stand-up comedy to anyone sober enough to listen.

Hes also branched away from computer books by teaming up with coauthors to write non-computer related books, most notably Breaking Into Acting For Dummies with Larry Garrison. (Thanks go to Ben Affleck for carrying around a copy and getting his picture taken with the book, which appeared in many major magazines including People Magazine and The New York Post.)

In his latest mad venture to avoid having to work in an ordinary 95 job, hes also teamed up with three other comedians (Rick Gene, Wes Sample, and Justin Davis) to create, produce, and host a radio show called Keeping It Weird, currently (at least at the time of this writing) airing on 103.7 Free FM in San Diego.

By the time you read this, the author may be off pursuing something entirely different. Whatever he may be doing at the time, it should at least make for interesting stories to tell his grandchildren about one day.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the wonderful people Ive met along the path of life, including...

Cassandra (my wife), Jordan (my son), and Bo, Scraps, Tasha, and Nuit (our cats).

Lily Carnie, the only person I know who can truly see both sides of the story.

All the friendly folks Ive met while performing at the Riviera Comedy Club, located at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas: Steve Schirripa (who also appears on the HBO show, The Sopranos, which you can read about at www.hbo.com/sopranos), Don Learned, Bob Zany, Gerry Bednob, Bruce Clark, Darrell Joyce, and Kip Addotta. The next time youre visiting Las Vegas, drop by the Riviera and watch a comedy show. Then dump some money in a slot machine on the way out to ensure that the Riviera Hotel & Casino continues making enough money to keep its comedy club open.

Thanks also go to Roger Feeny at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Russ Rivas at Laffs in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Pat Wilson at Mesquite, Nevada; and Joe Jarred at Primm and Pahrump, Nevada for running some of the friendliest comedy clubs around the country.

Final thanks must also go to Leo (the man, the myth, the legend) Fontaine, Chris (the Zooman) Clobber, Rick Gene, Wes Sample, Justin Davis, and Dante (who gets excited just to see his name in a book).

Authors Acknowledgments

If it wasnt for Bill Gladstone at Waterside Productions, I might still be staring off into space in a cubicle somewhere, working in a dead-end job, wondering what could have been.

Additional thanks go to Allen Wyatt for making sure that everything in this book is accurate, along with Rebecca Senninger and Virginia Sanders for making the process of writing a book always painless, easy, and often fun.

Final acknowledgements go to Cassandra (my wife) for putting up with multiple computers that (from her point of view) seem to spontaneously appear and disappear around the house at random. Each time a computer disappears, a more advanced model appears that promises more speed and hard drive space, but still never seems to have more speed or as much room as the previous computer model that it replaced.