Review by Mark Kantrowitz: Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright "Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science" MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994. 583 pages. ISBN 0-262-08226-8. $49.95. This book is ideal for students with little or no previous exposure to programming. The book is designed to be used before SICP (the authors call it a SICP "prequel"), and makes Scheme fun by sheltering the students from potentially confusing technical details. Unlike Pascal or C, the emphasis is on ideas, not obscure matters of syntax and arbitrary rules of style. High schools who have shied away from using Scheme because they found SICP to be too challenging should consider using this book instead. The text gradually and gently introduces students to some of the key concepts of programming in Scheme. It starts off with functions and function composition and continues with the notion of functions as data (first-class functions) and programs that write programs (higher-order functions). Since the complexity of the language is hidden, students can get involved in some of the more interesting and fun aspects of the language earlier than in other texts. Then the book progresses through the more complicated concepts of lambda, recursion, data abstraction and procedural abstraction, and concludes with sequential techniques, but with careful attention to topics students often find difficult. There are five chapters on recursion alone! There's also a pitfalls section at the end of most chapters to help students recognize and avoid common errors. The book uses several programs as examples, including a tic-tac-toe program, a pattern matcher, a miniature spreadsheet, and a simple database program. Source code for the programs is available by anonymous ftp from anarres.cs.berkeley.edu:pub/scheme/, or for $10 on IBM or Macintosh diskettes from the publisher.