If you’re just learning how to program, Julia is an excellent JIT-compiled, dynamically-typed language with a clean syntax. This hands-on guide uses Julia (version 1.0) to walk you through programming one step at a time, beginning with basic programming concepts before moving on to more advanced capabilities, such as creating new types and multiple dispatch.

Designed from the beginning for high performance, Julia is a general-purpose language not only ideal for numerical analysis and computational science, but also for web programming or scripting. Through exercises in each chapter, you’ll try out programming concepts as you learn them.

Think Julia is ideal for students at the high school or college level, as well as self-learners, home-schooled students, and professionals who need to learn programming basics.

Start with the basics, including language syntax and semantics

Get a clear definition of each programming concept

Learn about values, variables, statements, functions, and data structures in a logical progression

Discover how to work with files and databases

Understand types, methods, and multiple dispatch

Use debugging techniques to fix syntax, runtime, and semantic errors

Explore interface design and data structures through case studies

Ben Lauwens is a professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy (RMA Belgium). He has a PhD in engineering and master's degrees from KU Leuven and RMA and a bachelor's degree from RMA.