Everything about How to Design Programs

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: How to Design ProgramsA 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: How Do Curricular Design Changes Impact Computer Science Programs?: A Case Study at San Pablo Catholic University in PeruInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: C How to ProgramThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: Competing with loyalty: How to design successful customer loyalty reward programsCited 58 times
5. Go sideways: Racket (programming language)A closely related topic
6. Go sideways: ProgramByDesignA closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• Competing with loyalty: How to design successful customer loyalty reward programs

  Alina Nastasoiu, Mark Vandenbosch · 2019 · Business Horizons · 58 citations

• How to design co-programs

  JEREMY GIBBONS · 2021 · Journal of Functional Programming · 7 citations

• How computer graphing programs change the graph design process

  Lee E. Brasseur · 1994 · ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation · 3 citations

• How to Design and Apply Interactive Digital Educational TV Programs Based on the ADDIE Model

  the College of Educational Information Technology, South China Normal University, Guangdong, Guangzhou, 510631, China, Zixun Hua · 2016 · International Journal of Information and Education Technology · 2 citations

• On teaching *how to design programs*

  Norman Ramsey · 2014 · ACM SIGPLAN Notices · 0 citations

• How Cryptocurrency Could Improve Basic Income Programs: A Design Science Research Approach

  Marcelo Henrique de Araujo, Eduardo H. Diniz, Adrian K. Cernev · 2026 · Information Technology for Development · 0 citations

• How to Do Corporate Volunteering Right – Investigating the Optimal Design of Volunteering Programs

  Michael Verbuecheln, Laura Marie Schons, CB Bhattacharya · 2018 · Academy of Management Proceedings · 0 citations

• Education programs: Inquiring student minds want to know how fuel cells work, and how to design them better

  Vicki P. McConnell · 2008 · Fuel Cells Bulletin · 0 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• How Do Curricular Design Changes Impact Computer Science Programs?: A Case Study at San Pablo Catholic University in Peru

  Daniel A. Gutierrez-Pachas, Germain Garcia-Zanabria, Alex J. Cuadros-Vargas · 2022 · Education Sciences · 7 citations

• UNCOVERING THE POWER OF WEBSITE DESIGN AND PRODUCT PHOTOS: HOW FLASH SALES PROGRAMS SHAPE PURCHASING DECISIONS

  Sofyan Lazuardi, Tri Wahjoedi · 2024 · TRANSEKONOMIKA: AKUNTANSI, BISNIS DAN KEUANGAN · 1 citations

• The Cultivation of Novice Teachers: How Administrators Design, Support, and Evaluate Induction Programs in Rural Schools

  Tamara G Lynn · 2023 · Iris Journal of Educational Research · 1 citations

• How TV Programs of Home Design Attract the Audience -- Case Studies of Changing Room, New Home, and Design Rules

  Xiyuan Liu · 2025 · Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media · 0 citations

• How Would You Do it? Using Community Cafes to Inform Co-Design of Community Response Programs?

  María Gandarilla Ocampo, Leanne Heaton, Oriana Leach · 2026 · Child Maltreatment · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• C How to ProgramPaul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel · 2007
• Learning PythonMark Lutz, David Ascher · 1999
• Research DesignJohn W. Creswell, J. David Creswell · 1994
• Invitation to Computer ScienceG. Michael Schneider, Judith L. Gersting · 1995
• Java how to programPaul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel · 2005
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP)Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman · 1985
• Design PatternsErich Gamma, John Vlissides · 1995
• Think PythonAllen B. Downey, Allen Downey · 2009

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics

• Racket (programming language) Racket is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language. The Racket language is a modern dialect of Lisp and a descendant of Scheme. It is designed…
• ProgramByDesign The ProgramByDesign (formerly TeachScheme!) project is an outreach effort of the PLT research group. The goal is to train college faculty, high school…
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is a computer science textbook by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Harold Abelson…
• Essentials of Programming Languages Essentials of Programming Languages (EOPL) is a textbook on programming languages by Daniel P. Friedman, Mitchell Wand, and Christopher T. Haynes. EOPL…
• Matthias Felleisen Matthias Felleisen is a German-American computer science professor and author. He grew up in Germany and immigrated to the US in his twenties. He received…
• Matthew Flatt Matthew Flatt is an American computer scientist and professor at the University of Utah School of Computing in Salt Lake City. He is also the leader of…
• Language-oriented programming Language-oriented programming (LOP) is a software-development paradigm where "language" is a software building block with the same status as objects, modules…
• Expression problem The expression problem is a problem in programming languages that concerns the extensibility and modularity of statically typed data abstractions. The…