2nd
Covering topics in the right order
A big part of planning a book is deciding what order to cover things in. This is an issue when planning the book as a whole, individual chapters, or sections within that chapter.
Happily, there are three organizing principles that you can use in almost any situation:
- Move from simple to complex — start with the easiest bit
- Group related topics together — variations on the same theme come close together
- Follow a sequence of steps — gradually build something
In most books, each of these principles will play a part — and the best structure will use elements of each. Sometimes you have to find a balance between the 3 principles.
Think about how we would apply this to a beginner’s guide to programming:
Simple to complex — you would usually start with simple concepts like variables, if-then statements, loops, and other basics before moving onto creating libraries, classes and objects, and architecture decisions.
Grouping related topics together — you would tend to cover if-then and select case close together. For loops and Do loops would probably appear together too. They are obviously related.
Follow a sequence of steps — you probably wouldn’t teach programming by going through the steps you take to develop a program (starting with design, planning the architecture, etc.) because the early steps are some of the most complex. So in the case of learning to program, you might play down this principle.
There is no such thing as the perfect order. All you can do is avoid the really bad ones. Your book will be read by hundreds or thousands of people, and they won’t all have the same learning style.
Follow these organizing principles and you will end up with an order that will be fine for most people.