Language Books Tutorials for popular languages

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It wasn t that long ago that I was a beginning coder  trying to find good books tutorials on languages I wanted to learn   Even still  there are times I need to pick up a language relatively quickly for a new project I am working on   The point of this post is to document some of the best tutorials and books for these languages   I will start the list with the best I can find  but hope you guys out there can help with better suggestions new languages   Here is what I found   Since this is now wiki editable  I am giving control up to the community   If you have a suggestion  please put it in this section  I decided to also add a section for general be a better programmer books and online references as well   Once again  all recommendations are welcome   General Programming  Online Tutorials Foundations of Programming By Karl Seguin - From Codebetter  its C  based but the ideas ring true across the board  can t believe no-one s posted this yet actually  How to Write Unmaintainable Code - An anti manual that teaches you how to write code in the most unmaintable way possible   It would be funny if a lot of these suggestions didn t ring so true  The Programming Section of Wiki Books - suggested by Jim Robert as having a large amount of books tutorials on multiple languages in various stages of completion Just the Basics To get a feel for a language   Books Code Complete - This book goes without saying  it is truely brilliant in too many ways to mention  The Pragmatic Programmer - The next best thing to working with a master coder  teaching you everything they know  Mastering Regular Expressions - Regular Expressions are an essential tool in every programmer s toolbox   This book  recommended by Patrick Lozzi is a great way to learn what they are capable of  Algorithms in C  C    and Java - A great way to learn all the classic algorithms if you find Knuth s books a bit too in depth   C  Online Tutorials This tutorial seems to pretty consise and thourough  looked over the material and seems to be pretty good   Not sure how friendly it would be to new programmers though  Books K amp R C - a classic for sure   It might be argued that all programmers should read it  C Primer Plus - Suggested by Imran as being the ultimate C book for beginning programmers  C  A Reference Manual - A great reference recommended by Patrick Lozzi   C    Online Tutorials The tutorial on cplusplus com seems to be the most complete   I found another tutorial here but it doesn t include topics like polymorphism  which I believe is essential   If you are coming from C  this tutorial might be the best for you     Another useful tutorial  C   Annotation  In Ubuntu family you can get the ebook on multiple format pdf  txt  Postscript  and LaTex  by installing c  -annotation package from Synaptic installed package can be found in  usr share doc c  -annotation    Books The C   Programming Language - crucial for any C   programmer  C   Primer Plus - Orginally added as a typo  but the amazon reviews are so good  I am going to keep it here until someone says it is a dud  Effective C   - Ways to improve your C   programs  More Effective C   - Continuation of Effective C    Effective STL - Ways to improve your use of the STL   Thinking in C   - Great book  both volumes  Written by Bruce Eckel and Chuck Ellison   Programming   Principles and Practice Using C   - Stroustrup s introduction to C     Accelerated C   - Andy Koenig and Barbara Moo - An excellent introduction to C   that doesn t treat C   as  C with extra bits bolted on   in fact you dive straight in and start using STL early on   Forth  Books FORTH  a text and reference  Mahlon G  Kelly and Nicholas   Spies  ISBN 0-13-326349-5   ISBN 0-13-326331-2  1986   Prentice-Hall  Leo Brodie s books are good but this book   is even better  For instance it covers defining words and   the interpreter in depth   Java  Online Tutorials Sun s Java Tutorials - An official tutorial that seems thourough  but I am not a java expert   You guys know of any better ones  Books Head First Java - Recommended as a great introductory text by Patrick Lozzi  Effective Java - Recommended by pek as a great intermediate text  Core Java Volume 1 and Core Java Volume 2 - Suggested by FreeMemory as some of the best java references available  Java Concurrency in Practice - Recommended by MDC as great resource for concurrent programming in Java   The Java Programing Language  Python  Online Tutorials Python org - The online documentation for this language is pretty good   If you know of any better let me know  Dive Into Python - Suggested by Nickola   Seems to be a python book online   Perl  Online Tutorials perldoc perl - This is how I personally got started with the language  and I don t think you will be able to beat it  Books Learning Perl - a great way to introduce yourself to the language  Programming Perl - greatly referred to as the Perl Bible   Essential reference for any serious perl programmer  Perl Cookbook - A great book that has solutions to many common problems  Modern Perl Programming - newly released  contains the latest wisdom on modern techniques and tools  including Moose and DBIx  Class   Ruby  Online Tutorials Adam Mika suggested Why s  Poignant  Guide to Ruby but after taking a look at it  I don t know if it is for everyone  Found this site which seems to offer several tutorials for Ruby on Rails  Books Programming Ruby - suggested as a great reference for all things ruby   Visual Basic  Online Tutorials Found this site which seems to devote itself to visual basic tutorials   Not sure how good they are though   PHP  Online Tutorials The main PHP site - A simple tutorial that allows user comments for each page  which I really like  PHPFreaks Tutorials - Various tutorials of different difficulty lengths  Quakenet PHP tutorials - PHP tutorial that will guide you from ground up   JavaScript  Online Tutorials Found a decent tutorial here geared toward non-programmers   Found another more advanced one here   Nickolay suggested A reintroduction to javascript as a good read here   Books Head first JavaScript JavaScript  The Good Parts  with a Google Tech Talk video by the author     C   Online Tutorials C  Station Tutorial - Seems to be a decent tutorial that I dug up  but I am not a C  guy  C  Language Specification - Suggested by tamberg   Not really a tutorial  but a great reference on all the elements of C  Books C  to the point - suggested by tamberg as a short text that explains the language in amazing depth  ocaml  Books nlucaroni suggested the following  OCaml for Scientists Introduction to ocaml Using Understand and unraveling ocaml  practice to theory and vice versa Developing Applications using Ocaml - O Reilly The Objective Caml System - Official Manua    Haskell  Online Tutorials nlucaroni suggested the following  Explore functional programming with Haskell Books Real World Haskell Total Functional Programming    LISP Scheme  Books wfarr suggested the following  The Little Schemer - Introduction to Scheme and functional programming in general The Seasoned Schemer - Followup to Little Schemer  Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - The definitive book on Lisp  also available online   Practical Common Lisp - A good introduction to Lisp with several examples of practical use  On Lisp - Advanced Topics in Lisp How to Design Programs - An Introduction to Computing and Programming Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming   Case Studies in Common Lisp - an approach to high quality Lisp programming  What about you guys   Am I totally off on some of there   Did I leave out your favorite language   I will take the best comments and modify the question with the suggestions

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Some books on Java I d recommend   For Beginners  Head First Java is an excellent introduction to the language  And I must also mention Head First Design Patterns which is a great resource for learners to grasp what can be quite challenging concepts  The easy-going fun style of these books are ideal for ppl new to programming   A really thorough  comprehensive book on Java SE is Bruce Eckel s Thinking In Java v4   At just under 1500 pages it s good for weight-training as well   For those of us not on fat bank-bonuses there are older versions available for free download   Of course  as many ppl have already mentioned  Josh Bloch s Effective Java v2 is an essential part of any Java developer s library

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Common Lisp I would add  quot Practical Common Lisp quot   by Peter Seibel to the lisp list  It is particularly good at providing examples  MP3 parsing  shoutcast server  HTML compiler  that are topical  http   gigamonkeys com book

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I know this is going to seem old-fashioned  but I don t think much of using online tutorials to learn programming languages or platforms   These generally give you no more than a little taste of the language   To really learn a language  you need the equivalent of a  book   and in many cases  this means a real dead-tree book   If you want to learn C  read K amp R   If you want to learn C    read Stroustrup   If you want to learn Lisp Scheme  read SICP   Etc   If you re not willing to spend more than  30 and a few hours to learn a language  you probably aren t going to learn it

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Can t believe nobody has mentioned the Perl Best Practices  There s also a Twitter feed that delivers one PBP per day   I learned Perl from Robert s Perl Tutorial  which I recommend  but it hasn t been updated since 1999  A newer recommended tutorial is Steve s Perl Tutorial   For web development with Perl  the clear winner is Catalyst  and the Catalyst wiki is the starting point for learning

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C     Thinking in C   by Bruce Eckel C   Coding Standards by Herb Sutter  amp  Andrei Alexandrescu   The first one is good for beginners and the second one requires more advanced level in C

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check out the programming section of wikibooks  Many of them are fully formed  and quite a few have more advanced sections  which are in varying states of completion  on specific functionality   also  w3 schools has a great php tutorial and reference section  their html and css sections are good for reference too

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For C    I suggest Accelerated C   by Koenig and Moo as a beginning text  though I don t know how it would be for an absolute novice  It focuses on using the STL right away  which makes getting things done much easier

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C     Programming in C      Stephen G  Kochan  Developer s Library   Organized  clear  elaborate  beautiful

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Erlang  I ve found Programming Erlang to be an excellent book for learning Erlang  It s written by the guy who created the language  and covers both basic and advanced topics very well  It has some great examples  too

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I ll second Real World Haskell  After visiting the  stackoverflow IRC Channel  irc freenode net  As of now I have spoke to two authors  one on Reddit and one on the  haskell channel on the same server as the SO channel and they have been nothing but helpful in my quest to learn Haskell  It s the first time I would highly recommend a book on programming to anyone

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Ruby   The Free Ruby on Rails Training Online Course by Sang Shin Isn t too bad  It also has a decent amount of further reading links on each subject in the course

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C - The C Programming Language - Obviously I had to reference K amp R  one of the best programming books out there full stop  C   - Accelerated C   - This clear  well written introduction to C   goes straight to using the STL and gives nice  clear  practical examples  Lives up to its name  C  - Pro C  2008 and the  NET 3 5 Platform - Bit of a mouthful but wonderfully written and huge depth  F  - Expert F  - Designed to take experienced programmers from zero to expert in F   Very well written  one of the author s invented F  so you can t go far wrong  Scheme - The Little Schemer - Really unique approach to teaching a programming language done really well  Ruby - Programming Ruby - Affectionately known as the  pick axe  book  this is THE defacto introduction to Ruby  Very well written  clear and detailed

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For C     CLR via C       C  in Depth

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Common Lisp  For a good reference of CL check out Common Lisp the Language  2nd Edition

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Given recent developments I think it s important to include the recent explosion of free online course offerings from universities and private companies   The new boston is a tutorial site i ve always used for numerous languages for years  great beginner point   http   www udacity com   https   www coursera org   http   www coursehero org   http   www codecademy com   http   mitx mit edu   http   www khanacademy org   http   thenewboston org

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For C   I am a big fan of C   Common Knowledge  Essential Intermediate Programming  I like that it is organized into small sections  usually less than 5 pages per topic   So it is easy for me to grab it and read up on concepts that I need to review   It is a must read for me the night before and on the plane to a job interview

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Core Java Vol 1 and 2   By Cay S  Horstmann and Gary Cornell  Best Java book EVER

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Java Java Notes - Very Neat for novice java programmer

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For Objective C   Cocoa  Programming for Mac OSX - Third Edition Aaron Hillegass Published by Addison Wesley  Programming in Objective C   Stephen G Kochan

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The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton  The Ruby Way cover http   rubyhacker com trw2cover gif

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Python  http   diveintopython net   JS  a re-introduction to JavaScript is the introduction to the language  not the browser specifics  for programmers  Don t know a good tutorial on JS in browser   Great idea by the way

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Smalltalk   Pharo by Example Seaside book

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For Javascript    Javascript  The Definitive Guide Pro Javascript Techniques   For PHP    PHP Objects  Patterns  and Practice   For OO design  amp  programming  patterns    Object-Oriented Software Construction  a bible  maybe the Head First OO would be nice  I don t know it  Head First Design Patterns  I so love this book  Design Patterns   For Refactoring    Refactoring  Improving the Design of Existing Code Working Effectively with Legacy Code   For SQL MySQL    Joe Celko  Tree and Hierarchies in SQL  only on a specific subject  but I found it interesting  Pro MySQL

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Design Patterns in Ruby   http   www amazon com Design-Patterns-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professional dp 0321490452 reader

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Java  SCJP for Java 6  I still use it as a reference

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These are all really good  written by academia and  some  are books  an unpublished oreilly book --translated from French  but no issues I ve found   for example   I ve   d my favorite ones that helped me the most   ocaml      Introduction to ocaml Using Understand and unraveling ocaml  practice to theory and vice versa  Developing Applications using Ocaml - O Reilly The Objective Caml System - Official Manual A Concise Introduction to Objective Caml Practical Ocaml   Haskell     Explore functional programming with Haskell  Real World Haskell  Total Functional Programming

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For Lisp and Scheme  hell  functional programming in general   there are few things that provide a more solid foundation than The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer  Both provide a very simple and intuitive introduction to both Scheme and functional programming that proves far simpler for new students or hobbyists than any of the typical volumes that rub off like a nonfiction rendition of War  amp  Peace   Once they ve moved beyond the Schemer series  SICP and On Lisp are both fantastic choices

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Haskell   O Reilly Book    Real World Haskell  a great tutorial-oriented book on Haskell  available online and in print    My favorite general  less academic online tutorials    The Haskell wikibook which contains all of the excellent Yet Another Haskell Tutorial   This tutorial helps with specifics of setting up a Haskell distro and running example programs  for example   Learn you a Haskell for Great Good  in the spirit of Why s Poignant Guide to Ruby but more to the point  Write yourself a Scheme in 48 hours  Get your hands dirty learning Haskell with a real project    Books on Functional Programming with Haskell    Lambda calculus  combinators  more theoretical  but in a very down to earth manner  Davie s Introduction to Functional Programming Systems Using Haskell Laziness and program correctness  thinking functionally  Bird s Introduction to Functional Programming Using Haskell

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C  - Dot Net Book Zero

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C  K N  King has a list of recommended C books in his personal page    The C Puzzle Book  Revised Edition  C  A Reference Manual  Fifth Edition C Unleashed C Traps and Pitfalls Expert C Programming

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Effective Java is a must but I recommend being comfortable with Java first to fully understand the examples

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For Java  I highly recommend Core Java  It s a large tome  or two large tomes   but I ve found it to be one of the best references on Java I ve read

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The defacto standard for learning Grails is the excellent Getting Started with Grails by Jason Rudolph  You can debate whether it is an online tutorial or a book since it can be purchased but is available as a free download  There are more  real  books being published and I recommend Beginning Groovy and Grails

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Java  Java In a Nutshell   The name is a bit of a misnomer because it s quite thick but it really has everything you need to learn Java

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For PHP  I d recommend Advanced PHP Programming by George Schlossnagle  If you re just getting started in PHP  it s probably not the best book to start  but after you have an idea of what you are doing  it s a book that  in my opinion  tells you a lot of best practices and tips that you might miss out on otherwise   For learning Lisp  I ve been recommend to read Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel  This one is available online at http   www gigamonkeys com book    For Lua  I recommend Programming in Lua by Roberto Ierusalimschy  This book is not the best programming book out there  but among the current selection of Lua books  this would be the best  This first edition of the book is also available online at http   www lua org pil   As the back cover of the book mentions  the book is oriented towards those who already have some programming experience in another language

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C   C  to the Point by Hanspeter M  ssenb  ck  On a mere 200 pages he explains C  in astonishing depth  focusing on underlying concepts and concise examples rather than hand waving and Visual Studio screenshots   For additional information on specific language features  check the C  language specification ECMA-334   Framework Design Guidelines  a book by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams from Microsoft  provides further insight into the main design decisions behind the  NET library

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C Primer Plus  5th Edition - The C book to get if you re learning C without any prior programming experience  It s a personal favorite of mine as I learned to program from this book  It has all the qualities a beginner friendly book should have    Doesn t assume any prior exposure to programming Enjoyable to read  without becoming annoying like For Dummies   Doesn t oversimplify

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I second Kristopher s recommendation of K amp R for C   I ve found the  Essential Actionscript 2 0  book quite useful for AS coding  there s an AS3 version out now I believe    I ve found that having real books to thumb through is more helpful than an online reference in some cases   Not really sure why though

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MSDN http   msdn microsoft com en-us library ms229335 aspx

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For J2EE you have a very comprehensive tutorial at  http   java sun com javaee 5 docs tutorial doc

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I d add Bruce Eckel s programming books    Thinking in Java  print version  4th edition  3rd  ed  is online  http   www mindview net Books TIJ   Thinking in C    2nd ed  freely available online  http   mindview net Books TICPP ThinkingInCPP2e html   In general  his  Books  page  http   mindview net Books   is a good resource  The freely availabe books can also be found at http   www ibiblio org pub docs books eckel

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Perl Core Language - Little Black Book - excellent reference

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One site I keep coming back to is http   www javapractices com  It covers most of the techniques that are discussed in the Effective Java book  Also another good site to check up coding examples  from basic to advanced  is http   www java2s com

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The reference you have listed for Ruby is for Ruby on Rails   While still ruby deep down  it is definitely not a place to start for people wanting to learn Ruby   For Ruby tutorials  I would suggest Why s  Poignant  Guide to Ruby as a great starting point for anyone interested in the language    If you would want to get into more detail  I would recommend the book Programming Ruby  which has become the standard for all things Ruby   The third edition is currently being written  highlighting Ruby 1 9 features  so I would hold off for a while if anyone is considering buying this book

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For C and C   online tutorials  and other topics    http   www cprogramming com tutorial html

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Let s not forget Head First Java  which could be considered the essential first step in this language or maybe the step after the online tutorials by Sun  It s great for the purpose of grasping the language concisely  while adding a bit of fun  serving as a stepping stone for the more in-depth books already mentioned   Sedgewick offers great series on Algorithms which are a must-have if you find Knuth s books to be too in-depth  Knuth aside  Sedgewick brings a solid approach to the field and he offers his books in C  C   and Java  The C   books could be used backwardly on C since he doesn t make a very large distinction between the two languages in his presentation    Whenever I m working on C  C A Reference Manual  by Harbison and Steele  goes with me everywhere  It s concise and efficient while being extremely thorough making it priceless to me anyways     Languages aside  and if this thread is to become a go-to for references in which I think it s heading that way due to the number of solid contributions  please include Mastering Regular Expressions  for reasons I think most of us are aware of    some would also say that regex can be considered a language in its own right  Further  its usefulness in a wide array of languages makes it invaluable

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I know this is a cross post from here    but  I think one of the best Java books is Java Concurrency in Practice by Brian Goetz   A rather advanced book - but  it will wear well on your concurrent code and Java development in general

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System   Computer Systems  A Programmer s Perspective  2 E  Lisp   Let Over Lambda

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For Python  I would like to suggest  A Byte of Python    Disclosure  I m the author of this book  but the user feedback on the main page and the book should hopefully speak for itself

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hmm   I don t know if I would say that online materials are useless  but I do agree that there is something about books   Maybe they are better written  or maybe it is the act of forking over  50 that makes you more inclined to study the material   Either way  I agree that books should be part of this question   If anyone has any suggestions for books for languages I will edit the post with the best suggestions

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Head First Javascript is a good intro to JS for beginning programmers - it creatively explains basic programming concepts using JS syntax  The Head First series is based on researched techniques for helping you learn and remember new information  They have you do a lot of exercises and puzzles which might seem juvenile  but really help cement the knowledge in your brain   One exercise I really liked was after they explained data types  they show a picture of a city street and say  label all the data types you can find in this picture   So the blinker on a car is a boolean  the sign on the store is a string  and the address is a number  That helped me get the idea of how to translate real information into a program   Based only on this book  I d say the Head First series is a great way to learn something the first time  but the story-like format they have would make them difficult to use as references

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For Java EE 5 there s a separate tutorial JEE tutorial  That s useful  as people often ask about persistence and xml binding in java

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For REALbasic   Buginning REALbasic  From Novice to Professional by Jerry Lee Ford  Very basic  but a good way to get started

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