was the books. 
They were too big, with too much unnecessary detail about Java, and
not enough high-level guidance about how to program. And they all
suffered from the trap door effect: they would start out easy,
proceed gradually, and then somewhere around Chapter 5 the bottom would
fall out. The students would get too much new material, too fast,
and I would spend the rest of the semester picking up the pieces.<br />
<br />
Two weeks before the first day of classes, I decided to write my
own book. 
My goa