which programming book is right for me?

[gamenovice]

hi guys,

for christmas, i was going to get a programming book, so i was wondering what would be the best one for me.

here are my options:

C/++/#
XNA
Engine architecture and developing(for games)
JAVA
LUA
Cocoa/OBJ-C
Something like OpenGL or SDL
particle effects
art/shading effects

those are my primary targets, but if you can recommend a book for either those languages or categories or another one: I would greatly appreciate it

[ismetteren]

Your question is kinda hard to answer since we dont know anything about you...

My general advice would be, that if you know at least one programming language very well, go for a book about something that is not an introduction to a language, but rather about some general topic you find interesting(examples: AI, Game Engine Architecture, OOP/Object oriented design, Design patterns, algorithms, OpenGL, maybe something low level about how computers work even though it isn't exactly programming, and so on...)
If you know one of the languages you listed well learning the others shouldn't be that hard. Generally it isn't, unless you are dealing with a whole other paradigm(like functional programming)

If you are new to programming, pick up a book about a language. I think the question about what language is best to start with have been discussed several times on the forum.

[gamenovice]

Hm, i shouldve waited before posting this, but thanks for the advice!

[davidthefat]

For free, you can check out the computer science lectures on iTunesU, I also suggest it on Youtube, but you can save it on iTunesU and there is a bigger selection to pick from. Just search MIT or Stanford, they are great classes. I suggest this first: http://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordUni ... C7F4A1F852 its the beginner class then go into abstraction then you practice on your own and look up the other topics afterwards