Thank you all for the good suggestions so far.
To clarify -- books on Unit Testing, Refactoring, or any other topic that is applied after learning a language, is a bit different than what I'd like to focus on, in this specific thread. They are still great suggestions, they just serve a different purpose.
In this instance, I'd like to compile a list of very simple fundamentals books that give people the foundation to be able to learn much more effectively, when they move on to more specific courses.
Because these books are generic, they will help people, no matter which language they prefer to learn.
In some cases, it may also help people decide which language is the best for their interest. This is the reason it's important to refer books that aren't specific to any language.
Here's an idea of the sort of topics I believe are important before learning an actual language:
-- Fundamentals of code, in generic terms, such as:
. . Variables, Types (eg fundamentals of strings v numerics), Operators, Control-of-Flow / Logic, Loops, General I/O concepts, general file/DB IO concepts.
-- Paradigms in programming, such as:
. . Functional, OO, C/S, Microservices, etc.
-- Importance of re-usable code, libraries, etc.
[Login to see the link] -- The fist half of your post is perfect. These are all common college-textbooks in C/S degrees that serve as fundamentals to programming. I was having a hard time recalling the different academic books on this topic, it's been so long.
I think we'll wrap some of these together and create a single product that we can offer to members who would like to become programmers, to aid them in their journey, because this makes a huge difference in the learning process.