Contents - Cultural View

Head First (book series) 136
Head First (book series)
Head First is a series of introductory instructional books to many topics, published by O'Reilly Media. It stresses an
unorthodox, visually intensive, reader-involving combination of puzzles, jokes, nonstandard design and layout, and
an engaging, conversational style to immerse the reader in a given topic.
Originally, the series covered programming and software engineering, but is now expanding to other topics in
science, mathematics and business, due to success[1]. The series was created by Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra, and
began with Head First Java in 2003.
Concept
The main idea of the series is to effectively stimulate the brain by: [2]
• Telling stories
• Visualizing
• Using attention-grabbing tactics: page layout, non-standard examples, puzzles, jokes, and other means.
By using metacognition [3] the series' authors and editors try to employ varied methods to present information and
accelerate the learning process.
Books
The official web site for the Head First series has forums for each book as well as code downloads and sample
chapters. They include:
• Head First Software Development (ISBN 0-596-52735-7) by Dan Pilone and Russ Miles
• Head First PMP (ISBN 0-596-10234-8) by Jennifer Greene and Andrew Stellman
• Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (ISBN 0-596-00867-8) by Brett McLaughlin, Gary Pollice and
David West
• Head First Ajax (ISBN 0-596-51578-2) by Rebecca Riordan
• Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (ISBN 0-596-10197-X) by Elisabeth Freeman and Eric Freeman
• Head First Java (ISBN 0-596-00920-8) by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates
• Head First Design Patterns (ISBN 0-596-00712-4) by Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman, Kathy Sierra and Bert
Bates
• Head First SQL (ISBN 0-596-52684-9) by Lynn Beighley
• Head First Rails (ISBN 0-596-51577-4) by David Griffiths
• Head First Servlets & JSPs (ISBN 0-596-51668-1) by Bryan Basham, Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates
• Head First JavaScript (ISBN 0-596-52774-8) by Michael Morrison
• Head First PHP & MySQL (ISBN 0-596-00630-3) by Lynn Beighley and Michael Morrison
• Head First Statistics (ISBN 0-596-52758-6) by Dawn Griffiths
• Head First iPhone Development (ISBN 0-596-80354-0) by Dan Pilone and Tracey Pilone
• Head First Programming (ISBN 0-596-80237-4) by Paul Barry and David Griffiths
The offerings in the Head First series are quickly expanding and also delving into subjects that are not directly
related to IT, such as Math (Head First Algebra, Head First Statistics), Science (Head First Physics) and project
management (Head First PMP). The books are also gaining some popularity for classroom use because of their
novel approach to their subject matters.