Cool Coding

A fun, accessible guide to computers and coding for older children and curious adults.

This fun and quirky book provides a fascinating introduction to the world of computer coding, organized into handy bite-sized chunks. Coding, now firmly part of the National Curriculum, is a huge subject and can seem slightly impenetrable, especially to parents, and that’s where this book comes in. Cool Coding contains everything you need to know about computers and coding, from the very basics of binary code and how it works, to the myriad things that coding can actually do, to the brave new worlds of artificial intelligence, robots and cloud computing. It introduces the most popular coding programmes taught in schools, Scratch and Python, and shows how coding can be used to create websites, games and apps, and make robots and moving vehicles, with the help of nifty devices such as the Raspberry Pi. And if you’ve ever wondered what spaghetti code, duck typing, snakecase or The Internet of Things are, you’ll find the answers here.

Packed with playful illustrations and inspiring information on the amazing world of coding and computing, this book is the perfect introduction to this most essential of subjects.

Born in the north-east of England and now living in London, Damien Weighill is renowned for his quirky and fun illustrations. He has worked with a wide and international range of clients including Adidas, Ford and The Guardian.

Rob Hansen is a computer programmer and all-round coding champion. Having been lucky enough to attend a school with long-standing engineering traditions, Robert is keen to help other young people to find out about the subject, which isn’t taught as a subject in schools. He is a STEM ambassador and has visited schools to give careers and subject talks, teach programming and run workshops.Robert has written all sorts of things, from software patents to tabletop roleplaying games, but Cool Coding is his first non-fiction book. He is married and lives in Hertfordshire.