"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.
I am not even joking.
I am not even joking.
I don't need to "learn" programming anymore (and if I did, I would use something interactive, not a book), and thus not falling into rote monkey-coding, but questioning "what am I doing here?" and "how can this be done different ways?" are much more important.
Alice gives you that. I recommend Martin Gardner's "the annotated Alice", which explains a lot of things that us non-Victorians might have missed otherwise.
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
Get a clear understanding of what's going on in that passage, and pointers will never cause you any difficulties.
48. The best book on programming for the layman is
"Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because
it's the best book on anything for the layman.
-- Alan Perlis