I've found the law and programming to be quite different. In programming and engineering in general, you are often working towards one particular goal. The optimum is in the distance and you are on your path to achieving it. In the law, you are often weighing two opposing viewpoints and trying to find the best way to advance your particular view. Perhaps the closest analogy to a large program would be with international tax law, an area that is statute driven with many complex interactions.
For me, there was no shortcut. I first learned to program with Abelson and Sussman's book, SICP. Depending on your background, the mathematical bits may not be that useful and are easily skipped. From there, learning the languages du jour are quite trivial, the only exception being low level coding in C or assembly for which the C book by Kernighan and Ritchie and the first volume of Knuth's TAOCP are quite useful.
Comments
I've found the law and programming to be quite different. In programming and engineering in general, you are often working towards one particular goal. The optimum is in the distance and you are on your path to achieving it. In the law, you are often weighing two opposing viewpoints and trying to find the best way to advance your particular view. Perhaps the closest analogy to a large program would be with international tax law, an area that is statute driven with many complex interactions.
For me, there was no shortcut. I first learned to program with Abelson and Sussman's book, SICP. Depending on your background, the mathematical bits may not be that useful and are easily skipped. From there, learning the languages du jour are quite trivial, the only exception being low level coding in C or assembly for which the C book by Kernighan and Ritchie and the first volume of Knuth's TAOCP are quite useful.