bProgramming Legend Charles Petzold unlocks the secrets of the extraordinary and prescient 1936 paper by Alan M. Turingb pMathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer known as the Turing Machine in an age before computers, he explored the concept of what it meant to be icomputablei, creating the field of computability theory in the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming.p pThe book expands Turing's original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations the author elaborates on and clarifies many of Turing's statements, making the original difficult-to-read document accessible to present day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others.p pInterwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turing's own life his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis during World War II, his involvement in seminal computer projects, his speculations about artificial intelligence, his arrest and prosec