Slashdot Mirror
Best Computer Books For The Smart
You'll remember last week, I asked for recommendations of the Best Websites for developers. This was a -great- thread and in the story, I mentioned that I was planning on doing the same regarding books this week. So here it is. What do you, the slashdot reader consider seminal works? What would you consider great introductions to technical topics? If you are interested, check it out...
As part of this I'm looking for books on C, C++, Perl, Python, PHP , System Administration, anything...you name. As before I have opinions on great books, but I want to see what you think. Also, what do people think is a great introductory book for people new to linux.
I would recommend the "Dummies" series to any smart person.
Effective C++ and More Effective C++, by Scott Meyers
How many times does this have to come up? How many more "Best Books" threads are we going to have?
by Bruce Schneier. The book is enjoyable and has saved me from several gaffes when using crypto for applications.
demi
Smart people don't read coding books, they just look stuff up using a search engine. Google comes to mind.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
'My 1st Post' by U. Suck
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell, 1984
Programming Perl (Camel)
Perl Cookbook (Bighorn sheep)
What's a book?
Antiquated competence won't be a job skill forever.
This is the tome on what object oriented design is all about.
My favorite resources about cum:
Playboy
Penthouse
Hustler
Chasey Lain
FUCK I CAN'T REMEMBER THAT FAMOUS ONE'S NAME!!!
I have found wrox press books to be good. They don't publish any of the "classic" books (for instance k&r c) but their stuff seems to be accurate and very well layed out. I find them the easiest to learn from by far.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
You want the best books for free?
alt.binaries.e-book.technical
This
Anything with Knuth's name on it
Dragon Book (Compilers - Principles, Tools & Techniques, Aho et al)
Gang of Four (Design Patterns, Gamma et al)
Andy Tannenbaum's OS book
That thick ass Intro to Algorithms book from the MIT boys
Patterson/Henessey Computer Organization & Design
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
no one is making you read or use slashdot...you don't like it? leave...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
you're asking for book recommendations for the 'smart' - since smart people don't do things like ask for book recommendations on Slashdot, it's unlikely you'll be able to comprehend any of the answers you receive.
select * from books
where author = 'Knuth';
Well for a seminal book on C there is by definition K&R First Edition. For C++ there is Stroustrup, First Edition. For Perl...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130206016/ qid=/sr=/ref=cm_lm_asin/103-3920026-0250219
When I was thrust into the role of assistant System Administrator at the first company I worked at out of university, the "UNIX System Administration Handbook" by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, & Trent R. Hein was recommended to me as a good overview book of maintaining a Unix system, and a great reference for whenever you needed to do something. I was very impressed, still have and use my copy today, and would recommend it to any other new SysAdmin out there.
"ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham. Servers as both an introduction and reference to Common Lisp. Highly recommended.
Learning Red Hat Linux by Bill McCarty
Comes with Red Hat 7.2 CD's, is perfect for the Windows->Linux convert. Also a good reference on how to do simple things regardless of distro, this way I dont have to spend all day looking online.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Design Patterns, by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides.
Refactoring: improving the design of existing code, by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, and Don Roberts.
Joe Celko's SQL books.
It's an introductory text, but Jerry Sussman's and Julie Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is pretty good too. It makes you think about things more deeply than many other books do.
if you care so much give me an alternative, and if its decent then i will patronize it. And if you do, then live up to all the expectations you want /. to do.
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
Start with _The Art of Computer Programming_.
word.
Computer Architecture A Quantitative Approach by Hennessy and Patterson
While they might be a dry cover to cover read, the infomation in the titles that I have referanced has been accurate, and indepth.
O'Reilly's Website
For perl, O'Reilly has really great books documenting it, I recommend those books.
John Smiley makes great books, mainly because, it makes it alot easier to read through boring as hell visual basic and java books when its told in the style he uses.
You can also learn about from websites, marinoland C tutorial is the best
It only teaches you the basics, but the foundation is what matters most when learning C, you can buy a refrence book/manual and deal with the advanced stuff as you have to use it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Learning Perl by O'Reilly (Schwartz & Christiansen)... brilliant book for getting into Perl, and all things llama'ish.
Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest
- Great book, little bit of everything.
Code Complete - Steve McConnell
- Must read for anyone serious about programming. Read it.
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment - Richard Stevens
- Still one of the best UNIX programming books I've seen.
Since the advent of the web, though, I've come of the opinion that language agnostic books are the important ones. Books on particular languages ("Learn Foo in 21 days", "Practical Programming in BarBaz") or technologies date way too quickly. The web is the best source for information like this.
I think we're thankfully seeing more books like "Pragmatic Programmer", the "Extreme Programming" series, "Design Patterns", "Refactoring", "Death March" and other books that transcend particular languages and technologies.
The best textbook I have read for those just starting in EE (from a digital logic point of view) is "Digital Design: Priciples and Practices" by John Wakerly.
It starts with simple logic, truth tables, and so on, and covers more advanced topics in later chapters such as VHDL and other cool things. If you're not strictly CS, this is *the* handbook to have if you don't want to look like a doufus listening to EE guys. And, I've always found the index to be very complete (and filled with riddles) -- something MANY books seem to be horrible at!
I'd have to say the best 'feature' of this book -- and of any other, I'd say -- is the offer of a cash ($5!) reward for the first to discover an error!
(The author maintains an errata page and other goodies at http://www.ddpp.com)
Gets my vote. And any of the Oreilly books on Perl..
The O'Reilly books are great for introducing new topics and for delving deeper into topics that you are already familiar with. Well worth a look.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
I have read a lot of good books (mostly by Wrox publishing) but the best book, and most relevant (and very seminal too!) is Avanced Renderman: Creating CGI for motion pictures. If you want to write shaders (and who doesn't) this is the book. All of the concepts apply directly to the current realtime shaders even though the book s written with movie CGI in mind. If you want to be taken into the world of 3D rendering, see where its going, where its been and how it got there, this is the book. It will take you in new directions, it will tell you all you need to know and is written so well, you will almost lose respect for 3D developers because it makes things seem so simple.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Design Patterns (Gang of Four)
Refactoring (Fowler)
Mythical Man Month (Brooks)
Open Source tools for Java Development
eXtreme Programming books (even if you're not an XPer) (Beck, et al)
Analysis Patterns (Fowler)
Java Design (even if you're not a java developer, some good OO stuff in here) (Coad)
- Theoretical background -- experience in a CS course, good books that give you a theoretical base are nice. Why? Because later, to translate the theory into real work, you'll just need a reference, and things will work easier!
- Reference books -- to learn how to implement your ideas in specific settings (OS, language, etc).
I never found the first with books for specific compilers, IDEs, versions of things, etc, or any of those "big" books that promise you a lot.Interesting choices are books written "by the language author" (think Stroustrup, Larry Wall, etc), or books by people with a good background in CS (a CS professor, for example).
Also, books on theory are interesting. A book on Compilers may change the way you think. (The old "Dragon" book is nice, and Andrew Appel's book is also interesting). One book on Analysis of Algorithm like the one by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and (forgot the third author) is quite good, but you need a decent math background.
And for a reference, I think the more compact the better (I use Java in a Nutshell). References shouldn't be more verbose than the necessary.
(Just my $0.02)
For Java, a smart person with a little computer background should be able to figure it out from the language definition. Any of the more complex topics in Java change so quickly that it isn't worth buying books on them anyway--just use the on-line references. Sun has on-line tutorials ("trails") at developer.java.sun.com, left over from the days when Java wasn't hot yet and when they still had to bother recruiting people to Java.
For Perl, I wouldn't bother with any kind of reference. Just find scripts that roughly do what you want and hack them; it's blind groping around, but that's the way Perl works. If you can't get it to work that way, you probably should be writing in something else other than Perl. If you must, get something like the Perl Cookbook and a quick reference guide.
For Python, I like "Python and Tkinter Programming" and "The Quick Python Book", although O'Reilly's reference is also decent.
For a fun yet challenging introduction to computer programming, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" is good. What makes it even better is the fact that it's a book that teaches modern abstraction techniques but does not rely on object-oriented programming for everything. Most people coming to computers and computer programming wrongly think that objects are either the best, or even the only, way to build abstractions.
is the bible.
We're all sinners.
The middle mind speaks!
Check out http://www.canonicaltomes.org/, people have entered and voted on the "best" books in a variety of categories.
Sorry if I'm too lazy to look up any links or authors.
Thinking in C++/Java
Algorithms in C, the whole series.
Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm,Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides.
Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity and Induction : Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery both by John Holland - father(?) of the genetic algorithm - not necessarily computer books, but they do provide a different perspective on how you can write software to do thing.
The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3 by Donald E. Knuth
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
This is a tremendous waste of money at $45 CDN ($29.95 US). Firstly, it's lacking gross content at a measly 165 pages of large print pages (for $45 that is already criminal). More importantly, however, the content that is there could easily have been condensed to a two page article (I say this with complete sincerity): The author clearly strung along simple statements for long periods of time to convey the idea of foundation for some pretty dubious assertions.
While I've always found XP to be pretty sketchy to begin with (indeed this book further convinced me of that: This book actually claims that each of its revolutionary new ideas can't be measured alone, but rather have to be all performed in parallel, whereby they'll have an amazing cross-product effect and you'll get multiples of the effects of each piece individually. I couldn't help but thinking of snake oil salesmen: "You didn't have the best luvin' ever? Well you muster forgot to take it while facin' to the East!"
The only way I could even imagine recommending this book is if the same copy is going to be shared among a very large team, but otherwise save you're money. It's shameful to think that this book that literally could have been hashed together on the weekend is seling for the same price that a game that a team worked on for a couple of years.
Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics Is a wonderful review of basic EE concepts, from circuit design to device physics. Though it moves pretty quickly, and therefore might not provide the best introduction to the range of subjects it covers, I have found it an invaluable reference for those things that you learned a while back but can't quite recall. Doesn't get as detailed as a book on a more focused subject would either, but usually tells you enough to acomplish what you're trying to do. Detailed index; can look up that one equation you need, and be done.
Computer Architecture: A Quantitive Approach. THE book for computer architecture, the latest version even includes Itanium (too bad he didn't wait to give his review of the arch til McKinley came out).
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
I have no doubt that if you want to have a more theoretical background on many subjects regarding Computer Science, you have to read (or, at least, take a glance at) Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.
His books give an excellent introduction to many subjects, including many of the hardest problems in Computer Science. The first volume of his "The Art of Computer Programming" gives a very concise and comprehensive review of Mathematics needed for the remaining volumes. You might even learn about mathematical objects you never heard of (if you don't have higher education in Mathematics).
If you need something ligther on the Mathematics needed for Computer Science, then you might want to read his "Concrete Mathematics". Quite a beatiful book (typographically speaking), with an outstanding expostion of some advanced topics in Mathmematics neede for Computer Science and also quite funny to read.
I should also mention that his books are also a prime example of how someone should write a book. His books, while mostly technical, show a clear style of writing, direct and also entertaining, while discussing deep subjects.
The "problem" with Knuth's books are that they are intended for serious readers. You know if you are serious if you can read the first pages of his first volume. :-)
Another book that I would recommend is Andrew Tanenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems" (which is a bit more practical than Knuth's books) gives an overview of the structure of some common Operating Systems, including DOS and Unix.
I could give you many other recommendations, but you'd have to specify if the other recommendations that you want are more practical or more theoretical.
I hope this helps.
the Playboy collection from 1958... damn, when the girls were *pretty*, not stick thin.
1. K&R, The C Programming Language, 2nd ed.
2. R. Stevens, Unix Network Programming, 2nd ed.
After that one should decide what to choose. If it's C++:
B. Stroustrup, The C++ Programming language
After that people usually can find their way around books on their own.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
under the circumstances, than "SQL For Smarties"? ;-)
No joke, it really is a good book!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Since you didn't specify that the smart people have to be geeks, I thought I'd share Linux Administration: A Beginners Guide. It's a good sysadmin book for people who aren't Dummies and is especially good for Windows sysadmins who want to move over to The Force. It actually gives the dirt on effective use of the CLI, compiling your own servers, and other useful sysadmin tasks. What really impressed me was the fact that even though the book was published in early 2001 (January I think), it is still easy to apply the knowledge to current versions of everything since the author actually bothers to explain the underlying protocols and build processes that have applied since ./configure has been around.
Anyway, highly recommended.
For everything (well, almost) C++, you need the C++ in depth series. Get it, it's a great package.
Contains More Exceptional C++, Exceptional C++, Essential C++, Accelerated C++ and Modern C++ Design.
Accelerated C++ is the best book teaching C++ from the ground up that I have ever seen. It's worth getting and reading even if you think you already know the basics. Really.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Under the Bleachers
by: C. Moore Butts
Another good one is:
The Yellow Stream
by: I. Pee Freely
Also:
The White Ocean
by: Kneed Moore Lotion
You can't go wrong with:
The Crooked Mile
by: Ben D. Dick
Or:
Cherry Picking
by: Brooke N. Heiman
Coincidentally most of my favorite authors are named Mike:
A Bridge Too Far
by: Mike Hawk
Dead in the Water
by: Mike A'daber
Training Your Dog
by: Mike Hunt
Up the Flag Pole
by: Mike Rotch
And Finally the Modern Classic:
The Giver
by: Bob Goatse
And his Biography:
Meet Bob Goatse
by: Rip N. Torn
Code Complete and Rapid Development are the kinds of books I find most useful. I don't like any books that are specific to a language. These two are fantastic resources for learning how to program better, not how to write in a particular language.
If your a begginer, "x For Dummies". If you actually want to learn a topic inside out 10x, by the O'Riely and Wrox Press book on the subject. Read both cover to cover and do all the exercises (often overlooked). After you have done this and taken several Rent-A-Coder jobs, you'll be ready for most anything.
Now, as for learning Linux. I would (assuming your on Windoze), download Mandrake Linux, install it, then start toying around with it. Several years ago thats what I did, and now know Linux very well.
Specifically Unix Network Programming (vols 1 + 2) and Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment. Basically the holy bibles of all things unix-programish.
;)
Aside from that, same as what others have mentioned... Applied Cryptography, Unix System Administration, Practical Unix & Internet security...
Oh yeah, "The Complete Canadian Small Business Guide" has come in handy in many instances indirectly related to programming...
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
there is no thing
what else could you want?
You didn't say which technical topics, but here are some of the classic works that I've read and would recommend, in no particular order:
The C Programming Language - Kernighan & Ritchie
The C++ Programming Language - Bjarne Stroustrup
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment - W. Richard Stevens
Operating Systems: Design and Implementation - Andrew Tanenbaum
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools - Aho, Sethi, and Ullman
Introduction to Algorithms - Thomas H. Cormen, et al.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Harold Abelson, et al.
OpenGL Programming Guide - Opengl Architecture Review Board
SICP.
(Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, a fine book that'll teach you more about programming than should be allowed by law)
A decent list of C++ books is in this newsgroup posting.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Zoroaster: The Avesta
Lucretius: On the Nature of Reality
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
Albert Einstein: Relativity
Then, more specific for developers:
..and
..by me. ;-)
The Lord of the Rings. (doh)
Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.
How to date a woman.
Definitive guide to mental and sexual masturbation.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
shut the fuck up. you are going to spoil it for everyone.
slap first post in the subject line and NOBODY will read it, no matter what follows. we have been using slashdot to pass messages since the karma system was introduced. and NOBODY has noticed a thing.
so lay off or I will have someone fly a 737 into your house.
Osama
Aho, et. al. "Compilers"
Alexandrescu, "Modern C++ Design"
Bentley, "Programming Pearls", 2nd ed.
Brown, et. al. "Antipatterns"
Cooper, "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"
Fowler, "Refactoring"
Gamma, et. al. "Design Patterns"
Hanson, "C Interfaces and Implementations"
Johns & Lins, "Garbage Collection"
Josuttis, "The C++ Standard Library"
Kernighan & Pike, "The Practice of Programming"
Kernighan & Ritchie, "The C Programming Language" 2nd ed.
Knuth, "The Art of Computer Programming" vol 1-3
Meyers, "Effective C++"
Meyers, "More Effective C++"
Meyers, "Effective STL"
McConnell, "Code Complete"
McConnell, "Rapid Development"
Plauger, "The Standard C Library"
Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language"
Stroustrup, "The Design and Evolution of C++"
For specific topics:
Foley, et. al. "Computer Graphics"
Kernighan & Pike, "The Unix Programming Environment"
Schneier, "Applied Cryptography"
Stevens, "Unix Network Programming"
Stevens, "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment"
Also the Graphics Gems and Game Programming Gems series are superb. Maybe my list makes me old-school, but I like to understand what is happening from the use case all the way down to the register allocation algorithm. Of course, I can't always do that.
I don't mention any Java books because they get outdated so fast. The language hasn't changed much since 96, but the class library api is in constant flux.
these I feel lay the best foundation. Time and time again I come back to them -
C Programming Language (2nd Edition)
by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
Mastering Algorithms With C
by Kyle Loudon
Programming Perl (3rd Edition)
by Larry Wall, et al
Beginning Linux Programming (Linux Programming Series)
by Neil Matthew, Richard Stones
C++ Primer (3rd Edition)
by Stanley B. Lippman, Josee Lajoie
The C++ Programming Language (Special 3rd Edition)
by Bjarne Stroustrup
and any good C++ algorithms book.
Absolutely the *best* programming book I have ever found!
Here is a link to it. It has details on C/C++, complete RFCs, amazing example code, and a huge index!
The biggest problem is that there is only one copy. I tried to make my own copy, but quickly ran out of toner. When I asked one of the authors if there were any plans to make a second copy, he laughed and said, "Maybe on Mars!". I think he is losing his mind from all the corporations trying to stake a claim in his creative works. He really wants to be available to everyone.
P.S. Here is a great article on the history behind this imaginative book.
Learn to use your 104-button mouse. A.K.A. the keyboard.
If not, I strongly recommend Koenig & Moo's Accelerated C++. They write a column for C Users Journal. I knew C++ when I read it, and it completely flipped things around for me.
.NET? Still haven't figured out COM? O'Reilly has a book called Learning DCOM by Thai. I used to need it alot, but it might still be useful to ya'll.
.NET docs without mouse's reach.
Behind the curve on
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely HATE Perl. But when I'm forced by circumstance, I use Programming Perl, 3rd Ed. by Wall, Christiansen & Orwant.
Programming C# by Liberty is the only C# book I've read. I recommend thumbing through it only when you have the
Don't known DirectX and learning DirectX 9 isn't a priority? I wholeheartedly recommend Programming Role Playing Games w/ DirectX by Adams.
There's more. But these are the books I've used most often since January of this year...
[o]_O
I know PL/SQL doesn't have the highest regard, but Steven Feurstein's Oracle PL/SQL Programming was one of the best introductions/reference books I've ever read.
Got you on your feet quick and took you right to guru-ville.
The opposite of progress is congress
Microserfs
Tivo HACK Faq
I think we need a slashdot poll to find out if more people have read K&R or the Tivo Hack FAQ.
I know it isn't a particularly well-respected language, but Cold Fusion is a fantastic introduction to coding for people who don't know much more than HTML. Ben Forta's ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit can't be beat -- Allaire liked Forta's books so much they made him their Senior Product Evangelist. The Forta book also provides a good foundation for learning SQL and relational database design.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Not sure if these are for "the smart" but here are a few books that I've enjoyed. They make for nice easy summer reading -- and ya might learn somethin too!
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master -- A excellent guide to help you go from spagetti coder to a professional programmer.
Programming Pearls (2nd Edition) -- Elegant solutions to interesting problems.
The Practice of Programming -- Coding style, algorithms, etc.
Titles that are more meaty would include Code Complete, Design Patterns, Refactoring, Applied Cryptography, Knuth, etc., but I'm sure these will be mentioned ad nauseam.
Jenna Jameson
How could I forget.
Sorry honey!
Great books... they rock. Very good basic introduction that is useful to technical and non technical people alike.
"The Frozen Keyboard: Living With Bad Software." Boris Beizer, 1988, Tab books, ISBN 0-0306-3146-1. Out of print, alas. Absolutely wonderful.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Actually part of your collection should contain the great set of book son Computer Failures by Mr Glass..
I have "Computer Failures.com" very good book on what pitfalls should be avoiding in projects..both from the programming/project managment stand point and from the business standpoint
Don't Tread on OpenSource
If you're willing to fork over the dough the "Bible" series is awesome. They've helped me more than any other books, mostly because they contain everything pertaining to the topic. If you're looking to learn something fast, I use the Visual series from MaranGraphics.
We're Doomed
argh!! No Eiffel please!
The Story About Ping is a must read for anyone who uses this utility..er..duck...
The Pragmatic Program's Guide to Ruby is very good in its approach. It really eases the person into the language.
The opposite would be something like O'Reilly 3rd Edition of Learning Perl. Brick Wall. It hits the info fast and hard.
I like the median the "...For Web Professionals" series. I learned PHP faster off that than any web resource or book. Plus they are pretty cheap.
forget it.
The three Edward R. Tufte books...
"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" Graphics Press; ISBN: 0961392142; 2nd edition (May 2001)
"Envisioning Information" Graphics Press; ISBN: 0961392118; (May 1990)
"Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative"; Graphics Press; ISBN: 0961392126; (March 1997)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Only if you can stand his fascist tone. The guy thinks he is god - he has just collected ideas which was already known. I just can't take his arrogant style. If someone else wrote that book with some "etiquette" it would indeed have been a great book. (It's practical though irrelevant of who wrote it - it supports my other books on that shelf. :)
The C++ Programming Language. Bjarne Stroustup
Computer Graphics: Principles & Practice. Foley, Van Dam, et al
Modern Operating Systems. Tanenbaum
Compilers. Aho, Sethi, Ullman
Artificial Intelligence. Russell, Norvig
Introduction to Algorithms. Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest.
Design Patterns. Gamma
Code Complete. McConnell
TCP/IP. Comer
You can have my one-button mouse when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
mod parent down; obvious troll
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
A smart book, written by a smart person (Douglas Hofstadter) for smart persons. It's not computer science book. It's basically about intelligence and everything you can possibly connect to that topic.
It requires some effort to read it, but I assure you; you will look at things differently afterwards. (I know some of his ideas helped indirectly in comp. sci. matters...)
This is the introductory computer programming textbook used at MIT, and had been featured on slashdot here. However it is very different from what you would expect from such kind of books, with Scheme as the implementation language, it really does not teach readers how to code in a specific programming language, but how to program computers in a large variety of paradigms, what are the trade-offs in program design, how to manage complexity, and how the basics of computing works, by stretching the flexibility of the Lisp family of languages to the maximum. I first read it four years ago as a freshman, and it was a real eye opener. And it never ceased to amaze me through all these years, as I continue to discover new insights in the passages.
You can almost find a full undergrad CS program concentrated in this book, with topics including language design and computing paradigms (object-oriented, functional, imperative, non-deterministic and logic programming, as well as lazy evaluation), operating systems (issues of concurrency), architecture (the design of a register machine), and compiler construction (the reader is asked to build a Scheme compiler in the end). Instead of being filled with buzzwords, here you are shown how the basics of everything works, in ways that you can really understand. Working through this book will teach you concepts that many people with a CS degree had never heard of.
Hell, if I could only save one CS book when the world comes to an end, this would be the one. And the best part is: you can get the full-text online here at MIT Press. Definitely a must read.
I recently started using Emacs and was blown away. Someone suggested a book called "writing emacs extensions". Any comments on this book? If I get good feedback for this book, I plan to buy it. Thanks.
All your favorite sites in one place!
Concrete Mathematics by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1994), xiii+657pp. ISBN 0-201-55802-5l .316" made me chuckle, but you have to find them for yourself.
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/gkp.htm
The following is snipped from a review....
What is "concrete" math, as opposed to other types of math? The authors explain that the title comes from the blending of CONtinuous and disCRETE math, two branches of math that many seem to like to keep asunder, though each occurs in the foundation of the other. The topics in the book, such as sums, generating functions, and number theory, are actually standard discrete math topics; however, the treatment in this text shows the inherent continuous (read: calculus) undergirding of the topics. Without calculus, generating functions would not have come to mind and their tremendous power could not be put to use in figuring out series.
The smart-aleck marginal notes notwithstanding, this is a serious math book for those who are willing to dot every i and cross every t. Unlike most math texts (esp. graduate math texts), nothing is omitted along the way. Notation is explained (=very= important), common pitfalls are pointed out (as opposed to the usual way students come across them -- by getting back bleeding exams), and what is important and what is =not= as important are indicated.
The marginal notes unremarked; some are serious warnings to the reader. For example, in the introduction, one note remarks "I would advise the casual student to stay away from this course." Notes that advise one to skim, and there are a few, should be taken seriously. All the marginal notes come from the TAs who had to help with the text, and thus have a more nitty-gritty understanding of the difficulties students are likely to face. Still, there are plenty of puns and bad jokes to amuse the text-reader for hours: "The empty set is pointless," "But not Imbesselian," and "John
To someone who has been through the rigors of math grad school, this book is a delight to read; to those who have not, they must keep in mind that this is a serious text and must be prepared to do some real work. Very bright high school students have gotten through this text with little difficulty. I want to note ahead of time - some of the questions in the book are serious research topics. They don't necessarily tell you that when they give you the problem; if you've worked on the problem for a week, you should turn to the answers in the back to check that there really is a solution.
That said, I would highly recommend this book to math-lovers who want some rigorous math outside of the usual fare. The formulas in here can actually come in handy "in real life", especially if one has to use math a lot.
Two books stand out: "Python: Essential Reference" (2nd edition) for the ins-and-outs of all of Python's built-ins and most of the major modules, and "Python Visual Quick Start Guide," which is sort of like a Python cookbook of the basics, if you're new to it all. These two books have taken care of all my needs.
:Peter
The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition, by Kernighan and Ritchie is, in my opinion, the best book ever written on the C language. Every C programmer I know has a copy of the book (and I'm not exaggerating). This book probably has the most information on a programming language packed into the least amount of space. The book is $40 new on Amazon or your other favorite major bookseller.
There's no sig like SIGSEG
Parallel Port Complete by Jan Axelson.
It allowed this Mac head to develop a successful parallel port interface to a design of mine at work in a week.
My background is in computer graphics, so here are some of my recommendations if you're interested in this specific topic:
Foley, Feiner, van Dam, Hughes: Computer Graphics, Principles and Practice, second edition (may have a even newer one out...)
Glassner, Principles of Digital Image Synthesis -- a good all-around reference for rendering, useful as a jumping-off point for more in-depth works.
Graphics Gems series (up to Volume 5, the last I checked)
If you're interested in interactive 3-D algorithms (eg, games), 3-D Game Engine Design (forgot the author)
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Bugs in Writing -- learn to write (very important).
OO Software Construction -- Meyer's a windbag and a promoter, but his writing is entertaining because he writes endearingly, like a nutty professor.
The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook -- Leave this one as the only book in your bathroom for two years. Then eat some prunes and call me in the morning.
Programming Classics (Oliver)-- Good code samples.
Object Oriented Methods (Graham)-- A different look at OO.
The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer -- Yourdon gets a lot wrong, but he got some things right in this one, but a little too early.
The C++ Programming Language by Stroustrup(Addison)
A quick introduction to Fundamental Design:
Composite/Structured Design by Myers (ReinHold)
For on-time software projects:
Debugging the Development Process by MacGuire (MS Press)
For TCP/IP protocols and issues
TCP/IP Illustrated by Stevens (Addison)
For numerical programming:
Numerical Recipes in C/Fortan/etc by Press, et al (Cambridge)
For what a computer might be like:
The Humane Interface by Raskin (Addison)
For advance C:
C Traps and Pitfalls by Koenig (Addison)
For object-oriented design
Design Patterns by Gamma, et al (Addison)
For general reference:
The CRC handbook by the editors at the Chemical Rubber Company
Now, I have a question. Who is the most reliable publisher of computer books. It seems that O'Reilly is all the craze, but I have been disappointed with their accuracy and editing of late, though I buy their books if they are on discount or the only good text. For example, I bought their PHP book and I saw several mistakes in the programming examples, mistakes which would totally confuse an inexperienced coder. IMHO, the most consistently good books are published by Addison-Wesley. I would like to hear what other people think.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Really, people, before you mod all these pretentious karma whores up, remember the following: they never read Knuths magnum opus. Noone ever did, TAoCP is to CS what Atlas Shrugged is to world litterature. People just say they read it and consider it their awakening because
a) they are supposed to
b) it makes them sound cool
I'm so sick and tired of all people who shamelessly promote his books as essential and good introductions to CS. Knuth has become god around here, but I'll say what noone else dares: his books are milestones, full of amazing insights, and delve right into the core of what CS is about. But they are nonetheless amazingly boring, extremely difficult, and simply not worth their time. For mortals, that is.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
...and The Object Oriented Thought Process. The first can make you a competent TCP/IP network administrator, and the second, if you're like I was, will finally clear up your confusion about the Object Oriented paradigm.
We should all be anonymous just to piss "them" off.
AC is a fine book if you're reading around to be able to implement protocols and cryptographic algorithms, but if I had to pick one book on cryptology it would be David Kahn's The Code-Breakers. A fantastic book on the history of cryptology. I can't even begin to phantom the amount of research that went into this tome, it's just unbelievable.
Don't get the abridged version, and don't expect this one to be up to date on things happening after WW2 -- but understand that this is not a failing, it's a strength.
It 1100+ pages of pure goodness, and I couldn't put it down.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
By an odd coincidence, I've just read Hidden Order last week (I seem to have gotten onto a complexity/artificial life kick lately, unfortunately about 7 years late...is the party over?).
Anyway, I rather liked the book, although it is hard to say who the audience is supposed to be. It is too technical to be a good book for the general public, and yet isn't full of proofs to satisify the propeller-heads. And yet, I think it was better than reading the papers, at least for me, because I could focus on the main ideas rather than the details.
can't go wrong with Abrash ...
If you are looking to write software that talks over sockets/pipes/anything in unix - you must have Richard Steven's books - Unix Network Programming - 1 & 2
If you want to know the theory behind a lot of the networking stuff - then Tannebaum's "Computer Networks" is an excellent book as it Stalling's "Data and Computer Communications" (any edition - of course later ones are better but even the older ones are good)
... great, classic, book on how to think about problem-solving.
'Godel, Escher, Bach', Douglas Hofstader - for melting down, spinning around and reshaping your mind.
'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' - Abelson and Sussman - read the negative reviews at Amazon to realize how sophisticated a book this is. I found it my senior year in Computer Science and realized I'd hardly learned a thing yet. Deep stuff.
'The Pragmatic Programmer', Thomas and Hunt - wish I'd had it at the start of my career, it'd be even more fun, profitable and far less painful.
'Code Complete', McConnell - The bible of 'how to code it'.
'Software Project Survival Guide', McConnell - got me through my first independent project, with plenty of room for growth. Great book for a newly appointed project manager. Helps developers (and everyone else) figure out if their project is going gold or down the tubes pretty accurately.
'The Mythical Man Month' - Fredrick Brooks. Should be read regularly by anyone who manages software professionals. It's an interview question I ask any hiring manager. Ones who care about the field say 'Yes'.
'Programming Pearls' (any edition), Jon Bentley - Great fun, great exercises, great quotes. When you start feeling like programming is drudgery, a great tonic to renew your appreciation. Full of little techniques and large wisdom.
'Programmers At Work' - Interviews with 1985's leading lights of the software development industry. Great inspiration, now with historical relevance.
'The C Programming Language' - my vote for the most influential computer book ever(Hello?), and full of worthwhile knowledge. Anything Kernighan's involved in is worth picking up, an author who really cares about writing well.
You don't say if you're new to programming or not, but should the former be the case I suggest The Little LISPer.
I have not read this book myself, mostly because I already knew a fair amount of LISP when I first heard of it. However, I know a number of people who read it as their intro to programming and simply LOVED it. Few people can say that about their first programming book.
Of course, slightly more pretentious people would recommend the Wizard book and since you ask for "books for the smart" it deserves a note. It is interesting, no doubt, but a little overrated.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
I am going through "The Metamorphosis"...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Someone may have obviously mentioned these books.
Especially the "Bat" book (sendmail) and DNS/BIND.
My personal favorite is UNIX Power Tools
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
The Bible for Linear Algebra and Numerical Analysis is Matrix Computations by Golub and Van Loan.
This book is for the educated mathematician/numerical analyst. You'd better be able to eat your wheaties in a bowl of warm piss to even think about this one...ie, its not a learning text. However, as a reference, its uncontested IMHO. Good explanations, good pseudocode, the maturity of a 3rd edition (soon to be 4th?!?!, please!!!). All good things.
On the contrary, A great learning text is Trefethen and Bau's book Numerical Linear Algebra. It's got a nice one-method-per-lecture format that I find pleasant. I'm sure someone can back me up in saying that Trefethen is one of the best math writers of our time. If there is a math book you can curl up to by the fire with some warm cocoa, this is it!
I've heard good things about Demmel's Applied Numerical Linear Algebra too. It seems like our faculty are 50/50 torn between it and Trefethen/Bau.
TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 1 (The Protocols), by (the late) W. Richard Stevens.
This is an EXCELLENT and fundamental book on networking.
(He also wrote volumes 2 and 3, but you get a lot out of volume 1)
The Computer Image Watt & Policarpo
Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques Watt & Watt
Introduction to Computer Graphics Foley et al
OpenGL SuperBible Wright & Sweet
You absolutely need the book on Design Patterns by Gamma et al.
Also you should check out the Antipatterns book by Brown et al. A book on "common pitfalls" and more importantly, possible resolutions.
But, if you want to deviate a bit from the technical books, and if you want to expand your understanding of design and design patterns in software, and the philosophy behind it, you might be interested in Christopher Alexander's books and writings. His books are quite old, published in the 70s.
He's an architect (of actual buildings), but his ideas apply to anything that is designed. He developed the concept of "design patterns" and the computer science world has been applying his ideas. Here is a little article about him. It's because of him that we have the following definition of pattern: a solution (set of forms or rules), which solves a problem (resolves a set of forces), in a given context (a recurring sitution). A very general idea.
Basically he was trying to come up what he calls a "Pattern Language", a high-level way to describe design patterns in urban architecture, so that people could basically design their own homes and buildings. But the end result was something more profound and philosophical. Very interesting stuff but rather touchy-feely at times. For instance when he talks about the QWAN (quality without a name, the mystical sort of "beauty" that a good design has).
He also has (or he's still working on, I'm not sure) a recent multi-volume work called "The Nature of Order". I want to read it and I bet it's a much more interesting and insightful book than Wolfram's recent giant tome about a "new kind of science", and without the hype.
Disclaimer: I'm just getting into this type of stuff so I'm not 100% aware of all the history, etc., but Alexander's the name I see everywhere.
I think the book "Windows XP for Dummies" just about says it all.
"Butt Licking for Middle Management" by P.R.Manager
..and of course last week bestseller:
"How to Fuck up and Hide it" by J.D.Coder
"Speaking Marketroid" by C.U. Sales
"Book Cooking for Dummies"
Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein. Published by Prentice Hall PRT. ISBN 0-13-008466-2
Linux Firewalls Second Edition by Robert L. Ziegler. Published by New Riders. ISBN 0-7357-1099-6
I have no signature
A great overview of wavelet theory minus intimidating equations.
"The World According to Wavelets: The Story of a Mathematical Technique in the Making" by Barbara Burke Hubbard, 1996, A K Peters, Ltd., ISBN 1-56881-047-4.
These are the books in the bin of my cube, in no particular order.
Sed and Awk - Dale Dougherty, Arnold Robbins
Exploring Expect - Don Libes
UNIX System Administration Handbook - Evi Nemeth
Mastering Regular Expressions - by Jeffrey Friedl
Sun Performance and Tuning: Sparc & Solaris -Adrian Cockcroft
Solaris Internals: Core Kernel Architecture -
Jim Mauro, Richard McDougall
PANIC! UNIX System Crash Dump Analysis Handbook -
Chris Drake, Kimberley Brown
AIX Performance Tuning Guide - Frank Waters
UNIX Shell Programming, Revised Edition -
Stephen G. Kochan, Patrick H. Wood
The Korn Shell - Anatole Olczak
The title comes from the bogus concept that you can speed up a project by, say, a factor of 3 by throwing three more people at it. Brooks has inspired thoughts on project planning and systems architecture for real big projects. Its a great read.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
Like many others here, I have an interest in computer science. These are my favorite books having to do with CS:
:) Less theoretical than the above, but I just love this book. For some reason it reminds me of the early 90's when Jurassic Park came out and SGI's were amazing. It has that kind of excited vibe about the potential of computer graphics.
:) )enough. Simply one of the most interesting and well written CS books out there, with that perfect mix of theory and practice.
:) You'll find lot of really interesting, cutting edge stuff here. Generate height maps from stereo pairs and shit. Cool!
:)
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: If you want to be a software developer, read this book. If you're smart and motivated you won't need a CS professor to guide you through it. If you want to be a low level code monkey for the rest of your life, go read any C++ or Java book and go to technical school.
Introduction to Algorithms: find out what all those data structure API's you use are actually doing!
Introduction to the Theory of Computation: Wrap your head around the Halting problem. Find out why Alan Turing was one of the greatest minds in humanity's history. Blow your mind.
Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice In C: Want to be the future John Carmack? Good for you. Now read this book or you won't stand a chance
Artifical Intelligence: A Modern Approach: This book and my AI professor really sparked my interest in AI. I cannot praise this book (and professor
Introductory Techniques for 3-D Computer Vision: This tiny, yet $90.00 book is packed with information. I can't think of a more concise introduction to the field of computer vision, although admittedly this is the only book on the topic I've studied.
Again, no need to be a CS major to understand any of the above, but you'll have to be smart to do so. I'm personally not very smart, so I had to go the CS major route. If you're not smart and you don't want to and/or can't take courses, I'll refer you to the title of this slashdot story.
Content Addressable Parallel Processors by Caxton Foster.
laws of form by g. spencer brown.
What about Jeffrey Veen's The Art and Science of Web Design? This is the only book you need to learn about smart web design. It covers the important topics - assuming you know some basic html - and introduces you to fundamental aspects of building sites. It's a bit too lenient regarding tables-for-layout and such, but then, it's a year or two old and I'm a fanatic.
Dabbled in HTML and want to learn the CSS and principles to really make it work? Check this one out. It's also in very pretty colors.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I see Tannenbaum's book mentioned several times but so far I haven't seen even one mention of The Dinosaur Book.
UF Book I: User Friendly the Comic Strip - $12.95
UF Book II: Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell - $12.95
UF Book III: The Root of All Evil - $12.95
http://www.computergear.com/usfriencarbo.html
Because any fscking dork can code, but it takes a mondo sense of humor to create.
Let's not forget that programmers are writers of sorts. We need a muse like any other with a creative endeavor. I find these books that stay away from the low-level syntax and raise up what it is, the essence, of what we as programmers do to be much more uplifting and inspiring. After all, if I can't pick up on syntax, there's little use for me to drink caffeinated beverages well into the night.
The C Programming Language (Kernigan and Richie)
The best technical book about ANY subject that I've ever read.
Refactoring (Fowler)
This book has helped me write cleaner, more elegant code.
Design Patterns (Gang of Four)
A classic on program design.
Ruminations on C++ (Koenig, Moo)
Chapter 24 is the best explanation of how to write a C++ program (rather than writing a C program in C++) that I have read.
Effective C++ (Meyers)
If you try to program in C++ without reading this book, you are going to mess up!
Inside the C++ Object Model (Lippman)
The Design and Evolution of C++ (Stroustrup)
These two books really let you understand what's going on under the hood.
- Any of E.F. Codd's original papers (hard to find)
- Introduction to Database Systems - Chris Date
- The SQL Standard - Chris Date
- Practical Issues in Database Management - Fabian Pascal
- The Data Warehouse Toolkit - Ralph Kimball
- Building the Data Warehouse - W. H. Inmon
Programmers, if you ever find yourself building a relational database for a project, please please please read up and design it properly. There are way too many fucked up database designs out there already. Designing a mathematically sound database is way different from designing an algorithm.You have to check out the WROX Press series. Great stuff, especially Linux stuff. Also, the best C/C++ book is by The Waite Group.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn beginning to mid intel assembler.
Assembly Language for Intel-based computers. 3rd ed
( Kip R. Irvine )
I used this book my first year of CS to begin learning assembly, and still pick it up from time to time when I get tired of all the syntactic sugar. )
A really good concurrent read is:
Structured Computer Organization( Andrew Tanenbaum)
enjoy!
-the K&R book for C ... I use the web for these, python.org, php.net, phpbuilder.com, vaults of parnassus, etc.
-Design Patters by Erich Gamma et al for OO programming in any language
-any of the O'reilly books which are consistently excellent, and can be accessed for a fee at Safari
-the Camel Book for Perl (obviously)
-php & python
Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides
Hard-cover, 416 pages, Addison-Wesley 1995, ISBN 0-201-63361-2
Most useful programming book I've encountered.
Dynamic HTML -- The Definitive Reference
by Danny Goodman
O'Reilly & Associates
aka "the flamingo book"
For HTML and browser scriptiing you must have this book at your elbow. With each feature of HTML, DOM, or CSS, Goodman lists the compliance with different standards as well of the version number that supports the feature in Netscape and MS browsers.
A bit dated (1998) but still highly useful.
The Pattern on the Stone : The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by Daniel Hillis
Clickida
Elegant read on the fundamentals of computer design from a badass mofo. Simple and powerful, gives us an easy to understand rundown of how we got here and a glimpse at where we're going.
Essential System Administration by AEleen Frisch
TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1 by W. Richard Stevens
Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl (Hip Owls goes 2nd edition. Yeah Baby! Now I just need it to be put on Safari)
And fwiw, some books I'm reading now:
And the book I want for ChristmasI don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
General Books
Bertrand Meyer: Object Oriented Software Construction
Robert C. Martin: Designing Object Oriented C++ Applications using the Booch Method (this is useful for any OO programmer. You can read some good essays of Martin's at his company)
Gamma et. al.: Design Patterns
Martin Fowler: Refactoring
Kent Beck: Extreme Programming Explained
Java Books
Any O'Reilly book for specific parts of the API
Joshua Bloch: Effective Java
Off Topic
Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach -- still a must-read IMHO
I have discovered a wonderful
WROX Press book:Beginning Linux Programming" by Richard Stones and Neil Matthew
A very good no non-sense introduction book about programming in Linux.
Everyman dies, not everyman really lives. -W.W
The best 'book' I've found is Google. Programming Perl would be second.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
/usr/src/linux/*
-- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
Another book I forgot to mention is Modern Applied Statistics with S-PLUS by Venables and Ripley (Springer, 3rd ed.). It applies to both the S-PLUS software package and the open source package R. Additionally, Ripley contributes much code to the R project and also seems to respond well to specific questions to do with R. I highly recommend R to those who need a high powered stats and plotting package...it's well worth the learning curve.
I have said this before but this is a good book (in my opinion of course):
The Practice of System and Network Administration
This is a very good book covering many good processes and procedures in systems admining and the what not. I would recommend this book to any one working in the field. It covers everything from good practices in setting up a data center to good tips in dealing with Users.
Check out the slashdot review here [slashdot.org]
Author: Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
man
No manual entry for
mod parent down; complete dumbass
I saw this article, looked over my shoulder at the bookcase that has way too many Oreilly books and thought "Understanding the Linux Kernel. has probably saved me more time than any other book."
Eventually you are going to run into a bug/performance problem that is not in your code, not in the language, and not in the runtime, and you'll need to step into that big scary blob called the kernel. Then you'll read this book and realize that the kernel no different than any other piece of code, find the problem fix it, and go on with your life.
Of course if you're programming on top of a closed source OS then you're out of luck.
And I don't think you'll find many authors who want to get rid of libraries. Publishing houses, now that's possible. But don't blame the ones who do the grunt work. (Smacks of the artist vs MPAA/RIAA situation, eh?)
And as to the 'used books are killing our business' angle, baloney. If someone reads one of my books and doesn't think it's worth keeping, by all means they should get rid of it. I never sell off old books, but I do give them away to friends a lot. Or my newer trend, when I have a book I consider crap then I'll write one that I'd want to read.
It's much more rewarding.
Even if it doesn't pay squat.
These books should be on the shelf of every programmer:
And here's a list of the best computer history books I've encountered:
I'm doing a level 1xx course at my university of summer. Its a course which covers programming fundamentals using C++ language. This is the book we use:
Computer Science: A Structured Programming Approach Using C++ by Behrouz A. Forouzan and Richard F. Gilberg.
The starting few chapters are written for complete beginners. But the later topics are more challenging. Nicely organized and written in an easy to understand manner.
Don't buy this book on amazon..they rip u off. I got it at my university for 1/4 the price!
Principia Mathematica, by Russel and Whitehead. (not the inferior first version by Newton).
Ceci n'est pas un post
These are truly beautiful books. I actually keep TVDQI on my living room coffee table...and sometimes even find some of my more my quantitatively inhibited friends perusing the pages.
I enjoyed reading "elementery crypanalysis" i'd say you need at least a colleage math degree to understand some of the later chapters tho,,, gave some really insightful ideas on decrypting, and how to stop things from being decryted (except by those you want to) Reece :)
I think technical books that are worth reading just for their entertainment value are rare finds.
1) Complete idiot's guide to keeping your VolksWagen alive.
2) There are no electrons.
3) Instant Physics.
That link again is http://www.mindview.net/Books
Not only are they free, but they are pretty useful books. Bruce has done a really good job. Wheneven I start a new job and people begin to ask me silly Java questions all day I make them download the "Thinking in Java" book and look for answers there first. Bruce explains things better than me. I admit it. He also saves me time.
Lasers Controlled Games!
If there is any book that fits this topic, it is SICP. What makes this book different from any other intro CS book I have read is that it focuses on the science of computation, not just on "programming." Solid knowledge of higher math and some logic are prerequesites for reading, but this is the best possible book for anyone who wants to skip the syntactical crud of usual CS courses and jump right into the theory and mechanics of computer programming.
While this may not be the best route for computer engineers, shame on anyone who thinks that this book isn't an important read for anyone studying towards a computer science degree. This book lays out all the necessary concepts for learning any further languages or programming methods.
Some people don't like this book because it uses Scheme. They're mostly wrong - the book uses Scheme as a pseudocode, and touches only a fraction of the R5 Scheme standard. The benefits of this are apparent right from the first chapter - the book weans you from thinking of loops in terms of rigid and clumsy constructs, instead demonstrating that tail-recursion can completely replace them. And I really pity the people who think static types would enhance either Lisp or the readability of this book, as Hemos seems to be convinced about in his review. PS, R5 Scheme does have looping constructs; do some research before complaining.
In short, if you like math for math's sake and want to learn computer science, read this book.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
Not to change the subject, but a list of books not to recommend might be as useful as knowing the good ones, especially given the price of technical books...kind of like in college when you thought it might be cool to read James Joyce but later found that they were unreadable.
Any non-suggestions???
I find that most computer books written at an "intelligent" level are too dry and boring to read through, although O'Reilly is pretty good about not falling into this category, great examples are the Samba and Python books.
For the most part, I just use the Sam's "Teach yourself in 24 hours" series to get started, because they tend to be written by some pretty damned smart people who know the subject matter and present it casually, and then just buy a pile of more "sophisticated" books to read for detailed reference later on. Then again, I practice system-administration-on-the-fly-at-4am, so my style definately will not work for everyone.
I looked at the books there on C++, and couldn't quite figure out where they came from. Some are obvious choices with many votes. At least one (by Schildt) is... not on my recommended list... and seems to have no votes, yet still appears. What gives?
URL resolved fine for me, BTW.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"C Traps and Pitfalls" by Andrew Koenig is a little Gem that goes on the shelf next to K&R. Together those two books are both the perfect introduction for the C beginner and a timeless reference for the expert.
/and/ reference from the ultimate authority; the language's authors. If you need K&R dumbed down, you probably shouldn't be programming in C. But C has its traps and pitfalls, so if you learn /only/ from K&R there are a lot of mistakes you'll have to make yourself before you really master the language... Koenig's book will help you get through that process /much/ faster.
Although this is not exactly "deep" CS literature, I offer it as an answer to "computer books for smart people" because I've never understood why there are so many books on C... why would anyone want to learn C from a book other than K&R? It's a fine tutorial
Most of the other books on my shelf that I consider really outstanding have already been mentioned, but one that deserves to be seconded is Abelson and Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". This one MIT textbook is worth more than an entire 4-year CS education at most lesser institutions.
For Javascript I'm a firm believer in standards and with browsers, knowing what features entered with what browsers is a big part. The "Javascript Bible" is very good at core language and letting one know what various browsers can handle. I've bought some other Javascript books recently which are good too, but I use the Goodman "Javascript Bible" the most. When choosing a reference book that I expect to learn and live with, I collect an 18" stack at Borders and determine the best and most understandable and buy it. It takes a while, but since the book is going to be your LONG TERM reference, it is time well spent! After getting the "Javascript Bible," I was turned on to the "Bible" series. Later I realized that the quality of books in the series varies widely. Buy a "Bible" book only if it cuts your mustard. P.S. On a side perl note, I learned/loved the 2nd edition camel, but the 3rd edition camel is quite acceptable too.
the ARM (Annotated Reference Manual) is absolutely necessary for smart people. There are many "how to" books for every level of experience and covering a great many domains, but the ARM is the only complete reference to the entire language. Smart people are helped by Stroustrup's discussion of why certain language features were included and why others were excluded, why some syntax is the way it is, etc.
Surprisingly few C++ programmers I have met were actually aware of the existence of this book.
The Standard C Library,P.J. Plauger
I use this book *all* the time. It's very informative to see how a C library implementation works, and it has the important sections of the C standard reprinted with discussion. My #1 pick.
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment,W. Richard Stevens
The comp.unix.programmer bible. A must have for UNIX programmers.
UNIX Network Programming Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI, W. Richard Stevens
Another classic from Stevens. I have not done a tremendous amount of socket programming in C but I have extensively in Java and I am confident that I can in UNIX after having read select portions of this obviously high quaility book.
Lex & Yacc, John R. Levine
I think yacc (the GNU version is called bison) is an extreemly usefull tool. I started writing yacc grammers for all sorts of configuration files on my system while reading this the first time. Great fun, and potentially very usefull. A good yacc grammer can save tremendous amounts of time and is often the proper way to handle a problem. And I'm not recommending the book just because it's the only of it's kind. It's genuinely good.
Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences Computer Science and Computational Biology, Dan Gusfield
This is a tough book. Be prepared to ponder the presentation of each algorithm and skip the proofs (I believe you Dan). If you find yourself getting stuck in spegetti string manipulation, implement a few of these algorithms like calculating the edit distance of two sequences or Boyer-Moore. You'll be a better programmer after and there are very practical application hidden in this book. Again, the presentation is of the highest quality.
Introduction to Algorithms, Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest
I have three algorithms books. This one's the best and that's not a compermise. It's a great book.
The C Programming Language, Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
Of course.
The Art of Computer Programming (Vols 1-3), Donald E. Knuth
The C++ Programming Language (Third Edition and Special Edition), Bjarne Stroustrup
Xlib Programming Manual, Adrian Nye
Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, 2nd Edition, Bruce Schneier
X Window System Toolkit, A Complete Programmer's Guide and Specification, Paul J. Asente, Donna Converse, Ralph R. Swick, Paul Assente
Expert C Programming, Peter van der Linden
Life with UNIX, Don Libes and Sandy Ressler
Programming Pearls, Jon Bentley
Structured Computer Organization, Andrew Tanenbaum
The Code Book, Simon Singh
Etudes for Programmers, Charles Wetherell
Secrets and Lies, Bruce Schneier
The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
TCP/IP Illustrated, Richard Stevens
Exploring Expect, Don Libes
UNIX System Administration Handbook, Evi Nemeth et al
If you use UNIX, you need this book. Forget Running Linux. This is much better and the latest edition covers Red Hat as well as BSD, Solaris, and HP/UX.
Digital Woes, Lauren Wiener
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Richard P. Feynman
This was a pretty funny book. Very readable for anyone. A NYT Bestseller.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman
Essentials of Programming Languages, Daniel P. Friedman, Mitchell Wand, and Christopher T. Haynes
Software Fundamentals: Collected papers, David L. Parnas, Daniel M. Hoffman and David M. Weiss
The Invisible Computer, Donald A. Norman
Lion's Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code, John Lions
Envisioning Information, Edward R. Tufte
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward R. Tufte,
I think I have this book. I was disappointed.
Visual Explanations, Edward E. Tufte
The Design of the UNIX Operating System, Maurice J Bach
Algorithms in C, Robert Sedgewick
Not that great. Having lot's of code samples is nice but the comments are unbelieveable. Their HUGE. Really ruins and otherwise good book. I'd rather go with the Cormen book on Algorithms and just write c from there (done just that many times actually).
Introduction to Computer Theory, Daniel I A Cohen
Compilers, Principles, Techniques and Tools (The Dragon Book), Alfred V Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D Ullman
The Practice of Programming
Kernighan, Brian W., and Rob Pike
The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition : Essays on Software Engineering, Frederick P. Brooks
I would start by looking at the publisher:
Prentice-Hall
O'Reilly and Associates
Addison-Wesley
Singer-Verlag
Scanning down the spines of the books in my bookcase that matter, that contain information relevant year after year, those are the ones I see on the shelf.
Avoid anything that has a software version number in the title. Avoid anything that has logos from Magazine Publishers (i.e. 'PC Magazine recommends') on the cover. Avoid anything that has recommendations on the cover from the coffee-stain boys who write columns in the Ziff-Davis/Byte/PC Mag grade of magazines.
Thumb through the book. If it's more than 5% screen shots, avoid it like the plague.
If it looks like it was typeset with LaTeX, it's probably a good bet.
I know some of these are prejudices, and that there are exceptions to all the rules above, but it works for me.
Absolutely fascinating. Read it cover to cover except for that boring chapter on OS/360 in the middle.
Comer's original Xinu book was the first technical book I couldn't put down.
Category Theory is the most intuitive and practical branch of mathematics. Category Theory is even more useful and intuitive than counting. It is the glue that ties together the vast sea of concepts within your head. Category Theory is not just useful for continous or discrete mathematics/sciences, but instead Category Theory is useful for all kinds of exact thought! It lets you move from arithmetic to logic, from logic to set theory, from set theory to geometry, from geometry to a specific daily situation, from a specific daily situation back to a formal branch of matheatics, etc...
... So just as you learned the rest of counting, why not learn the rest of Category Theory ? It will give you a whole new insight into Computer Science.
You didn't get it taught to you in school because its such a young field of mathematics at around 50 years of age. Most branches of mathematics are at least hundreds of years old. However, you already use parts of Category Theory, even though you don't know the words for it, just as you used parts of counting before you knew the words "one", "two",
For its not just about the specific ideas used in Computer Science... its also about having enough "string" to tie it all together. Category Theory is an infinite supply of that "string".
I find it amazing that almost all the recommendations are for yet another book that teaches frickin for loops in yet another frickin dialect. "Using the STL" YEAH, iterators man, THEY RO0L0RZ, TOTALLY different from for loops. "Design Patterns" ADAPTER: reformats the parameters between two functionally compatible but syntactically different pieces of code. YEAH! ROCKET SCIENCE D00D.
Also, it's MORONIC that NOT A SOUL is recommending a book that'll teach you even ONE of the Top Ten most important algorithms of the 20th century. They are REALLY IMPORTANT. The Fast Fourier transform made possible: sound compression, image compression, electrical engineering in general, efficient numerical PDE's, fast integer multiplication, fast polynomial multiplication and many more. Metropolis integration made possible: nuclear bomb simulation, and the best (so far) algorithms for rendering 3d images. QR decomposition is REALLY IMPORTANT to finding eigenvalues, which is often useful when solving any kind of PDE. The simplex method can be used to solve a very wide variety of real-world optimization problems efficiently.
The other ones are really important as well.
So I'll make a suggestion to at least fix the problem for Fourier Series and elementary integration method by suggesting An Introduction to Numerical Analysis by Kendall Atkinson. This is an excellent introductory book. If you "smart" people want to learn something other than "look at me mom! for loops in Python instead of Perl!" then you'll find this a REAL BREEZE to read (smart person that you are.)
</outrage>
I also like Purely Functional Data Structures by Chris Okasaki.
Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in ..." series are particualrly good (and have the requisite ugly cover to be a classic text). Especially the C++ and Java pair, which should more accurately be titled "Thinking in Objects, C++/Java flavour". These are particularly good for people moving from procedural languages like Cobol, into the OO world. There are also a number of pieces of books he has put out for free.
The Gamma et al. book has really never impressed me, but then I suspect that is because most of the patterns they present were taugt to me over the years already... so by the time I saw that book, it was mostly review.
The other books that I've always found helpfull are the fomal specs for the language... for C++ developers, get a current copy of the bible from Stroustrup. C heads would want K&R's version. For java developers the Lang Spec from Gossling, Joy, Steele, and Bracha is a must read, and the VM spec from Lindholm and Yellin can be a great resource for anyone that is used to assembly level programming and wants to know how this "machine" works.
I've met very few technical people that can
write effectively. Everyone should
read this book because communicating
difficult ideas clearly is damn important.
I would deffinatley have to say PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson. This is an incredible book.
-Zibi
...by Cliff Stoll. Not a "how to" manual, but a very interesting tale of tracking hackers on the Internet in the pre-www days... Should be required reading for all geeks.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Hi -
"The Turing Omnibus" is a real joy - about 60 short and lively essays on various CS and mathematical topics. (I see there is a "New" edition of that book - I have not seen that yet.) If you do not have a formal background in CS or math, this can at least help you quickly become conversant in some of the more theoretical areas of CS. (At least to the point where you can throw some of the terms around and impress others who know less than you...)
TWR, Torrance, CA
Psychology of Computer Programming
Gerald M Weinberg
O'Reilly's "High Performance Computing" (the harrier book, although I've heard it called the raptor book as well) is an excellent volume on performance. It covers everything from hardware architecture to high level language structures. Excellent starting place for those writing performance critical code; although it expects that you already know how to write properly functional code first. (you might be surprised how many people neglect to ensure code still functions properly after the "improve performance".) There are sections on specific langauges (HPF for example) and environments (MPI, PVM) as well. Also good reading for anyone that has to benchmark code (it explains how to do it right) and those who have to understand benchmarks. Includes an explanation of a number of industry standard benchmarks. I wish marketing people that try to sell something based on benchmarks would read this.
"The Mythical Man-Month", Brooks. Won't really help much, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing exactly how your pointy haired managers are screwing things up.
"Design Patterns", Gamma, et al. Without this, you simply won't be able to understand current discussions about programs or programming. This book gives you the philosophy and vocabulary to understand what's going on.
"The Art of Computer Programming", Knuth. What can I say? An absolutely mindboggling treasure trove.
"Software Tools", Kernighan & Plauger. A Golden Oldie. The book is ancient, but the "software tool" concept is still solid.
"The Design of the Unix Operating System", Bach, and "The Design and Implememtation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System", McKusick et al. (These are old. I would hope there is something equivalent for Linux and current BSDs). While abstraction is all well and good, at some point you have to open up the black box and figure out what the machine is actually doing in there.
You need the definitive description of the language you're working with. For C, it's "The C Programming Language", Kernighan & Richie. For C++ it's "The C++ Programming Language", Stroustrup, or, if you're a standards junkie like me, INCITS/ISO/IEC 14882-1998, "ANSI Standard C++".
If you're doing anything connected with the Internet, learn about RFCs. Personally, I credit a large part of the success of the Internet to the free availability of its governing standards. (Other standards are freely available, but not available for free. A paper copy of ISO 14882, for example, is US$175.)
There are all sorts of "domain specific" books. What you need depends on what you're doing. I find "Advanced CORBA Programming with C++", henning & Vinoski, to be priceless, but then, I do CORBA programming in C++.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Design:
Gui Bloopers - Jeff Johnson
Design of everyday things - Donald Norman
The inmates are running the asylum - Alan Cooper
Uber Windows Coders (not for begginers)
Programming Applications for Windows - Jeffery Richter
Debugging Applications - John Robbins
Advanced Visual Basic 6 - Matt Curland
Sam
samsaffron.com
- Sam
Seminal?
On Holy Wars and a Plea For Peace
Danny Cohen 1980
http://www.op.net/docs/RFCs/ien-137
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
Actually, I learned perl with "Perl 5 for Dummies." It's a terrible book, but it let me (with mostly C and Pascal experience) fix a client's webstore.
I also recomend:
Oh! Pascal by Doug Cooper -- sure it's Pascal, but it has lots of general programming info that I use to this day. It's available in many flavors, including my favorite, the platform neutral one.
Assembly Language for Intel-Based Computers by Kip Irvine. It gets into all kinds of details about the x86 architecture.
Structured Computer Organization by Andrew S. Tanenbaum will teach you how to build a processor that understands Java byte code (integer instructions only) out of transistors. It's really that good.
Archimedes' Revenge: The Joys and Perils of Mathematics by Paul Hoffman is a wonderful book that covers everything from encryption to Turring machines to number theory. This book is a fun read that, altough somewhat dated, is still very relevant today.
Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything by Steven Levy provides an interesting look at the history of the first personal computer with a gui. The edition I have is from pre PowerPC times, so I assume that this one (featuring an iMac rather than one of the boxy 9"screen Macs on the cover) is more current.
t'nera semordnilap
PC Interrupts (Brown, Kyle)
Structured Assembler Language for IBM Microcomputers (Kindred)
Later with Windows my development love affair with Borlands Delphi got me hooked on the following:
Delphi Component Design (Thorpe)
Developing Custom Delphi 3 Components (Konopka)
Now with Borlands 3rd release of Kylix I'm sure I'll soon find more books about it that I'll find deeply interesting.
Actually I told a lie...I do have one very well used copy of The UNIX Operating System 3rd Ed. (Christian, Richter) that I truly love.
Personally I'd suggest you go to O'Reilly and Associates' Safari and preview any book that looks interesting. Previews give you a HUGE amount of information at 0 cost. If you subscribe at 5 points it's only $119.88 a year and you can swap out books you're finished with for new ones on a monthly basis but MAKE SURE you preview a bunch of books before you put them on your bookshelf as you will inevitably find a much cooler book two days later. I'm seriously considering sacrificing the money I set aside for a new hard drive to buy a year's subscription. O'Reilly books aren't the only ones you will find there, either which is nice.
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
by Proakis. The bible of Mobile Communications research engineers everywhere. Well, those working on the physical level like myself anyway.
1) "Trolling for dummies" ...er, you were looking for reccomendations for /. readers, right?
2) "Dumbing for trolls"
3) "Anti-trolling for smarties"
4) "How to stop dumb trolls"
5) "Trolls: Dummies or not?"
6) "Is that a troll in your pocket?"
7) "Dumb trolling for smarties"
8) "Smart trolling for dummies"
9) "Dumb, Trolling, and Out in Beverly Hills"
10) "Troll, Dummie, what's the difference?"
Cheers
-b
I'd have to say that the greatest book on programming is The Tao of Programming by Geoffery James. Sure, it was written in the mid 80's, but being a language agnostic book, it's still surprisingly relevant.
I learned everything I know about programming and even computers in general from that book. It even goes into management and stuff.
You can find it here, assuming you're not on an anti-software patent kick.
.
I also loved the Perl CD Bookshelf, especially the Learning Perl volume. I found myself frequently referring to it.
I understand that TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 1 and Volume 2 are valuable. I own both but haven't yet read either. (sorry for the amazon linking. I don't have anything else handy)
Dianetics.
The middle mind speaks!
Meetup in Toronto was fun last night.
I rather like my iBook for programming.
Class Construction in C and C++ by Roger Sessions was the book that showed me that OOP was as much (or more) a design philosophy than a language feature. You learn to write your OO code first in plain C, and only then do you start getting any introduction to C++'s language feature. An excellent approach.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Sex for Dummies, cause you "smart" (you mean fat and geeky) slashdot readers are loser computer freeks and need to learn some how!
Hard to find but an excellent general programming book. It's easy to discount the rants against OO methods, but they are accurate insofar as OO attitudes are concerned (OO implementations are not so restrictive.)
The Hardware Bible by Winn L. Rosch. (Its cheap too!)
:-)
Why?
I'm tired of working with programmers who can't deal with whats inside a computer. It drives me insane!
Reading and trying a bit of this puts you in my extra good books too.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven S. Skiena.
Essential reading. This is a book about the management of large development projects, told as a story.
It presumes the reader already knows something about programming, but wants to learn the essentials of a new language.
A smart book by smart people, for smart people, about a smart language.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
...or Gangbang sluts 7. After viewing these, you will be sooo relaxed that you WILL be a genius.
The most beautiful and comprehensive description
of a typesetting language you will ever read.
Great illustrations too. Should really be a
large-format coffee-table book. Glue, boxes and
tokens; the TeX stomach. Marvelous stuff!
Well then, can't you put the book available for free download, since you're not making money off it?
Well.. that'd have to be playboy, and penthouse
The Kama Sutra!
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
In addition to Kernigan & Ritchie's 2nd edition, The C Programming Lanugage with ANSI C, which should be on any programmer's workbench, be they Perl, Matlab, Maple, TCL, or even elisp programmers, here are some others:
The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve Skiena. Excellent.
The Nuts and Bolts of Proofs -- the heart of correct math is showing your work, and this book shows you how.
The Data Game -- Controverses in Social Science Statistics -- this really puts you in touch with the kinds of numbers you hear bandied about on the news, and what those numbers mean.
The Maple V Learning Guide -- this comes with Maple (and presumably Matlab if you get it with Maple) and teaches more than a typical undergraduate mathematics program in about 270 pages. Actually, you have to delve into the hypertext documentation of Maple to get at all the calculus, linear algebra, statistics, etc., but it's all in there.
Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability -- actually there were two volumes published in 1980, and one or both might have gone out of print.
What If there were No Significance Tests -- this overpriced volume (which you should be able to get for much less from the publisher's site, www.erlbaum.com that doesn't seem to be working right now) explains exactly what soft scientists (e.g., psychologists) mean when they say something is true.
100 Statistical Tests -- this reasonably priced but somewhat advanced, applied book will tell you how to tell whether something is true, even if you have to use indirect or partially correlated measurements. The author has provided tools with what you can quickly find the appropriate test(s) for most situations I can imagine.
All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats. Here's hoping for the +1 Funny moderation for Ruben Bolling, whom I believe to be perhaps the finest editorial cartoonist, up there with Ted Rall, Tom Tomorrow, Tom Toles, and Gary Treadeau. Fantastic!
Does anyone know if there is a way get the answers to the extra excercises in this book? This isn't for a class. I'm using to learn on my own, but I think they are not available unless you can prove you are a teacher. Why do people allways trash this and other Deitel books? It's a lot better than most I've read.
Often CS programs are heavy on calculus and lite on discrete math so I'd include Concrete Mathematics (Graham, Knuth, Patashnik) plus Learning Discrete Mathematics with ISETL (Baxter, Dubinsky, Levin). The combination gives a reasonable combination of math and programming. For learning programming as a discipline, I'd start with Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Abelson's, Sussman, Sussman). To gain a view of the implementation of a full computing system, Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation (Goldberg, Robson). Bytecodes to meta object protocol: this is a great worked example, placing emphasis on the critical distinction of language vs. implementation. A great view of the modeling required for complex, yet flexible systems is Working With Objects (Reenskaug, the author of Model View Controller). Plus with this you can forget all the Swing books, unless there is separate value added. A key piece of Reenskaug is his notion of value chain. It turns out we are suppose to be adding value to someone else's work, not just cool hacks! For Patterns, clearly Design Patterns is a required reference, but people need to be both smart and experienced to gain much from it. For learning Patterns I'd go to Design Patterns Java Workbook (Metsker), which also covers an an introduction to Swing and what passes for GUI programming. Saving time, we can order one more by Metsker: Building Parsers with Java, which not only presents a great framework for parsers (and a great tutorial by implication for framework design), but a strong introduction to unit testing, uml, and a greatly underappreciated framework for random testing. Since Metsker needs to parse something, logic programming, query processing, and imperative languages all get treatment that complements Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Is it really enough to cover everything with Scheme, ISETL, Smalltalk, and a little Java? Not quite. Partially because a good book on low level language will give something of an introduction to machine architecture. That sounds like C and I think The Practice of Programming (Kernighan, Pike) is far better than the standard white book. In addition, topics like incremental testing (unit tests without the xUnit brand), 'little languages', scripting languages, low level efficiency are introduced clearly. Continuing the path forward from C, Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms (Coplien) is not just about C++, but about computer science. Another reason, of course, for books in the C tradition is that they represent 'computing in the wild' - that is that's how a giant section of programmers works. (Of course, I'd say they are often doing it the hard way;) To finish with work in the C tradition, Effective Java is just fine. Far more than a Java book. It's good coverage of the problems of working with a language that reflects so many (I'm not saying poorly chosen) compromises. Many workday issues are well covered in The Pragmatic Programmer (Thomas, Hunt). Programming Perl (Wall, Schwartz)should be compared to Programming Ruby (Thomas, Hunt) and/or Programming Python (Lutz). The point is not to learn three scripting languages. The point is not to discover that my favorite is the best. The point is to gain an understanding of the differences and similarities among great programmers. More, to come to grips with the negative as well as positive consequences of almost any path. Now there is this stuff called AI. This is not the place for an evaluation, but programmers need to know the work. Lets use google as our inspiration and go with Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach (Russell, Norvig). For an approach to AI from a different tradition, Genetic Programming (Koza). Watch out. This book is aggressive in its program. Something by Rodney Brooks belongs here, but I have not read his recent stuff and I can't find a copy of his earlier 'how to build a robot book). The point is that a work advocating a very bottom up, sensor/perception based model of computation/robotics/AI is needed to balance Russell and Norvig. Data, Data, Data. Ullman's Database and Knowledge Base Systems covers a lot of bases. SQL gets placed in a sensible context. Swarm Intelligence (Kennedy, Eberhart) can round things out and set people up for Grid Computing Unleashed!. (author tbd). Objects have been covered, so we need to take the next step and look at components. Here Component Software (Szyperski) is great. Some could say it's a bit dated, and it 5 years it will be, but right now it is solid and provides historical perspective on COM/CORBA, etc. Components are (largely) about deployment. The Java issues and opportunities are well covered in Component Development for the Java Platform (Halloway). The basic issues (dynamic class loading, security management, dynamic invocation, distribution, etc.) have strong are similar in C# (CLI, really), but I'd like a comparable book from that world. Aspects and Generative programming are well introduced in Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications (Czarnecki, Eisenecker). For those who deal with (or should deal with) ontology, Appendix A is great. The discussion of Exemplar and Probabilistic ontology certainly raises some semantic web issues. Writing code and changing it are pretty closely related. Fowlwer's Refactoring, is a great introduction to a disciplined approach to changing it. More: it can be read as a call for better tooling. In order to have any hope of getting clear specifications and useful tests, programmers need to understand a bit of logic and probability. Language Proof and Logic (Barwise, Etchemendy) is great. It raises some deep issues concerning logic and visualization as well. I don't know what to recommend on the probability/statistics side. Certainly an introduction to Bayes should be included. Pearl's Causality or its predecessor exhaust my knowledge. Graphics. Video. Sound. Music. 3d. Help! Out of time, out of space. Distributed programming, operating systems, object databases, configuration management, source code control,and Linda (spaces) have not been mentioned.
I'm not expert, but I think a solid grasp of the above concepts would serve any programmer. You can never have too many tools. I think a "Smart Person" could get quite a lot from the following books. All are slim (210pp or less) and written in a "conversational" style. Some might find the style bothersome, but I didn't.
- For a quick introduction to recursion, The Little Schemer. The first sentence of the second paragraph of the preface says it all: The goal of this book is to teach the reader to think recursively. They use a small subset of Scheme to illustrate.
- The goal of this book is to teach the reader to think about the nature of computation. This is from The Seasoned Schemer, the "sequel" to the book above. The biggest of the books I mentioned (a whopping 210pp), it's easy reading and gets at what computers and computation can and can't do. Again, they use as small subset of Scheme here, but the concepts transfer to any language.
- A Little Java, A Few Patterns is perhaps the most ambitious of the three. It has two goals. In 180 pages, they introduce you to the nature of, concepts behind and reasons for Object Orientation (using a subset of Java). Then, they introduce you to design patterns. Note, I say "introduce" in both cases.
There are definitly more "classic" books out on all of these topics. Sadly, I think the definition of "classic" is too often the same for computer books as it is for standard literature. A book everyone talks about, but no one reads. For a "Smart Person", I'm not sure I know of any more accesable, compact, high density introductions to such fundamental topics. It's been my experience that smart people only need to be introduced to ideas to get them started. These books are slim enough that a person working full-time could go through them (thoroughly) in a week each, taking away quite a bit of information. You would then be better prepared to choose your next book from the list of "classics".I always liked the Unleashed series for Linux, helped me get started so many years ago :). As far as coding goes, If you're looking to get started coding and don't have any experience, get a book that's set up like a text book (or just get a school text book). It's easier to measure your progress if the chapters have tests and quizes at the end. Also, if you're doing coding, I've found that having two books on hand helps, one big thick $50 something or other as an in depth reference, and then some tiny lil $20 learn C++ in 5 mins, etc, as a quick reference. HTH
When I first started looking at computer books, I classified the Sams "Teach Yourself" series into the same category as "for Dummies". Then, one day, I decided I wanted to learn C. I went to the bookstore (long before the days I knew of free online book sites like informit) and was presented with only two choices: Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, or C for Dummies. Weighing out my chances (and glancing through the table of contents of each book), I decided to suck it in and try the Sams book. (I refused to sink to the level of the other choice.) I took the book home, and four days later (at a rate of 3-4 chapters/day, skipping the "how computers work" and "installing Borland C" first couple chapters) I knew more about C than (I later found out) was taught at the college I went to. The books are very well structured, and after the first four chapters (Days), each chapter builds on something taught in the earlier ones. Since then, I have bought several Sams books, and with the exception of one (Advanced C in 24 Hours, only because it was DOS-centric), I have been very happy with them. Definately a recommended {publisher / series / whatever you want to call it}.
--- "...And everybody died!!! Except for me, of course...you know why? Because I had my tray table up...and my seat ba
That book and "Apache Desktop Reference" are always beside my monitor.
Here's my gold list (from the front of my bookshelf):
Computer Graphics, Principles and Practice, Foley, van Dam, etc.
Computer Graphics, C version, by Donald Hearn and Pauline Baker
Real-Time Rendering by Thomas Moller and Eric Haines
Crafting a Compiler with C by Fisher and LeBlanc
Numerical Recipes in C, Art of Scientific Computation
Introduction to Algorithms, Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest
Computer Algorithms, Introduction to Design and Analysis by Sara Baase
Computers and Intractability, A guide to the theory of NP-Completeness
Computability, Complexity, and Languages, by Martin Davis
Introduction to Languages and The Theory of Computation, by John Martin
An Introduction to The Theory of Numbers by Ivan Niven, etc.
Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne
Data Compression, The Complete Reference by David Solomon
The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
Rapid Development by Steve McConnell (and other McConnell's books)
And how could the list ever be complete without...
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks
(am I a nerd of what?)
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
One case is where he discusses enumerated types. He doesn't treat them in an OO fashion, and he even breaks his rules on the opaqueness of types by exposing thier internal representation as unique integers. Of course he waves his hands over what an integer exactly is too. He wants everything in his world to be a proper "object" but when some things don't fit so neatly, he waves his hands and tries to distract us from the contradiction.
One of the best reads I've ever located on the web relating to development is rather peculiar. If you do C or C++ development though, this page may very well astonish and gross you out.
It explains how to implement coroutines in C, using a not-so-well known feature of switch statements: cases may be inside blocks inside a case statement.
I printed this out and showed it to my boss. I think he said something about firing for using code like that, but I didn't pay much attention to him. ;-)
Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal golden braid
Gamma et. al: Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable OO software.
Abelson, Sussman: Structure and Interpretation of computer programs.
Lakos: Large scale C++ software design.
Barendregt: Lambda calculi with types. http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/barendregt92lambda.html
Sorensen: Lectures on the Curry-Howard isomorphism. http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/519604.html
Knuth: The art of computer programming. (all volumes)
Rumbaugh et. al: Object oriented modeling and design
Brown et. al: Antipatterns, Refactoring software, architectures and projects in crisis.
Hopcroft, Ullman: Introduction to automata theory, languages and computation.
Henning, Vinoski: Advanced CORBA Programming with C++.
McConnell: Code complete, A practical handbook of software construction
McConnell: Rapid developement, taming wild software schedules
Brooks: The mythical man-month.
Meyer: Object oriented software construction
Andrews: Concurrent programming, principles and practice.
Russel, Norvik: Artificial intelligence, a modern approach
Meyers: Effective C++, 50 specific ways to improve your programs and designs.
Meyers: More effective C++, 35 new ways to improve your programs and designs.
These were selected from about 60 different books.
-- Esa Pulkkinen
all you need is revolutionary guide to assembly language and dos debug program to craft masterpiece
alright may need table to translate to opcode
I saw this website for a book that I guess took a group of computer guys almost 3 years to write. It looks pretty amazing to me. The book claims to have every UNIX and Linux command in existance and cross-references. I checked out the samples and I think I will order it soon. The website for the book is http://www.allcommands.com. Check it out and let me know what you think
Well there's some great stuff but it can be hard
:-)
to find if you don't know what you're looking for.
Try any of the following:
Chip, the Little Computer (ISBN: 1885624557)
Look Inside a Computer (ISBN: 044842178X)
101 Things to Do With Your Computer (ISBN: 0746029357)
Hit Enter (ISBN: 0325000816)
of course the seminal book "The ladybird book of computers" is now very difficult to find despite being the bible in this area. It certainly taught me everything I needed to know.
However, if you've had enough of the hard stuff you could look at these for some light relief:
First Course in Formal Language Theory by V. J. Rayward-Smith (ISBN: 0632011769)
The Art of Computer Programming (ISBN: 0201485419) this one's a bit of a classic really so if you're a real geek you're gonna want to say that you don't need to read this.
Anything else is icing on the cake
AC and proud of it!
Wow I can't believe MIT makes you write a scheme compiler. I had to write one for one of my classes, and I went to an affordable school.
The prof. called it simple scheme, we called it hell. I actually have a shirt that has a logo of
front: not (logical operator) superman logo (read as not superman)
back: Scheme Programmer
I still hate scheme not everything should be recursive.
The best programming books come from O'Rielies (spelling is wrong). I've bought a few and basically they assume you know something. So the book on C# I bought assumed I was well practiced in Programming and wanted to know how I could apply my knowledge in programming with c#. It didn't teach basic programming techniques and theory, except for a very light section to introduce the language
For books on AI, I'd definitely recommend -
Artificial Intelligence - Elaine Rich & Austin Knight
Artificial Intelligence - Patrick Henry Winston
If you're serious abt AI, I'd also recommend that you also read these auxillary ones -
Natural Language Understanding - James Allen (awesome book)
Compilers: Principles, techniques and tools - Aho, Sethi & Ulman
Graph Theory - Narsingh Deo
These books would give you a general idea about AI, and then specializing into any area would be fairly less difficult.
If you are planning on using LISP in AI, I'd again recommend Patrick Henry Winston & Berthold Klaus Paul Horn's book on LISP.
And in graphics, I'd recommend 2 must-read books -
Computer graphics: Principles & Practice - Foley, van Dam, Feiner & Hughes
Graphics Programming Black Book - Michael Abrash
(ok, although this is very outdated, he mentions some amazing techniques on optimization like bit compression, culling and the like, good anyday!)
Ofcourse, in almost all areas of comp sci, having the three volumes of Knuth would also be very handy indeed, if only as a reference material.
Any geek should have these on their bookshelf :
Advanced Programming in the UNIX environment (W. Richard Stevens - ISBN: 0201563177)
UNIX Network Programming Vol 1: Networking APIs - Sockets and XTI (W. Richard Stevens - ISBN: 013490012X)
UNIX Network Programming Vol 2: Interprocess Communications (W. Richard Stevens - ISBN: 0130810819)
C Programming Language: Ansi C (Kernighan and Ritchie - ISBN: 0131158171)
The C++ Programming Language, Special Edition (Bjarne Stroustrup - ISBN: 0201700735)
Programming with POSIX Threads (David R. Butenhof - ISBN: 0201633922)
TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1: The Protocols (W. Richard Stevens - 0201633469)
TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 2: The Implementation (Gary A. Wright, W. Richard Stevens - ISBN: 020163354X)
TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 3: TCP for Transactions, HTTP, NNTP and the UNIX Domain Protocols (W. Richard Stevens - ISBN: 0201634953)
The above books are very high quality and are packed with info. A good buy.
- The Art of Computer Programming (Knuth)
- Designing Web Usability (Nielsen)
- Computer Networks: A Systems Approach (Peterson + Davies)
- Distributed Algorithms (Lynch)
See the computer science, computing, networks, and Internet sections for information about lots of other books.Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
For C++ I would recommend "Thinking in C++", and for Java the similarly titled "Thinking in Java".
In fact, when I was a Java programmer, I think I leant just as much from T.I.C++ as I did from T.I.J, as it talks about the OOP model from a much lower level.
Michael Abrash, Graphics Programming Black Book
Of course Kunth's books are essentials. I liked the gang of Four (I think?) design patterns book as well
Moderation doesn't seem to work very well for lists like this. Maybe each poster should have equal weight, votes for specific texts are added together, and the highest scoring texts bubble to the top. Moderation seems to be a bit orthogonal to this, in that whole "groups" of recommendations are rated. Tough job for a moderator!
And I think it's HIGH TIME for the allowed HTML to be reviewed in line with recent W3C standards. For instance, most semantic/accessible markup is disallowed (<CITE>, please?) This is wrong (IMHO).
you had me at #!
``What do you, the slashdot reader consider seminal works?''
The eight-by-sixteen ASCII table in my WordStar
Customization Guide taught me all I needed to know.
I didn't go into programming, but when I saw the Mac
two years later I said, "Hmm, niche machine. Pity."
When I saw Microsoft Windows a year after that, I said,
"Oh-oh. Someone's up to no good." If anyone knows of
any books that teach the *basics* to *anyone* with
half a brain, let us know. *That* is what is really
needed -- Dan "dski" Strychalski
If you want a more geeky book, read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" from Douglas R. Hofstadter.
There really is no good answer to the question. What book is good for you to learn from is not a matter of how smart you are or what websites you visit. It's how you learn. My suggestion is look at what books you already have and ifgure out which one's did the best job for you. Then look for other books on the topics you want to learn by the same publisher/line. Generally a publisher tries to keep a "feel" for a line (say the O'Reilly in a Nutshell books) even across authors and subjects.
I'm a computer science student at Western Carolina University.. the books I always have sitting somewhere nearby are:
... It's a really good book for getting up to speed in C++. It makes the assumption the reader has previous programming experience (particularly in C), so it doesn't go through the (what I find annoying) "this is an if statement" sort of chapters.
... This is a rather long book with small type that does include those "this is an if statement" sort of chapters earlier on (it's geared for people who have never programmed before), so I tend to use it as a reference when I forget how some Swing component works or want to be reminded how to do programs with multiple threads.
1) C++: The Core Language
2) Java, Learn to Program
3) Learning Perl is a very short, newbie-ish guide to Perl, but if you want to get up to speed in Perl quickly, this'll do it. (I haven't checked out Programming Perl yet, mainly because I'm not a big Perl user).
4) Online manuals and references (okay, maybe this should fall under last week's thread) are often a good source of information when you're trying to do something not covered in the books.
5) computerbooks.web.com has alot of free books for download (some as HTML in tarballs, some as PDFs, some online only...).
Hope these help!
<wik>/bin/finger that girl in the back row of machines.
Cookbooks tend to be better than average...the Perl and Java ones from O'Reilly are great, the PHP one I got from somewhere else was ok.
I tend to add a cookbook section to my Atari 2600 programming Tutorial, 2600 101
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I would recommend a book i recently bought called "Large Scale C++ Software Design" (ISBN: 0201633620)
It deals with issues like how to design you program to make the code reusable and how to maintain the code while the project is growing.
The original post is seems to be asking more for technical books, but I notice a number of replies have listed some of the software engineering books by Brooks, McConnell, etc. so let me add to those.
Gerald Weinberg's Quality Software Management is an amazing compendium of wisdom on programming and running software development projects. There are four volumes in the series:
1. Systems Thinking
2. First-Order Measurement
3. Congruent Action
4. Anticipating Change
It seems to me that from these four volumes, all other software engineering, methodology, and management books can be derived. He identifies fundamental dynamics of humans developing software, the problems that arise and how to address the problems in a systematic way. No quick fixes, no easy answers, but stuff that works in the real world.
Like Gerald Weinberg's other books, it is very well written: high information density, easy to read, humorous.
Some of his other books I have read and highly recommend:
- Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach
- Secrets of Consulting: A Guide To Giving & Getting Advice Successfully (he has also just come out with More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit, which I haven't read yet)
- The Psychology of Computer Programming
- Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews
- Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design
For C, get "Expert C Programming" (aka the ugly fish book), by Peter Van Der Linden. Excellent in-depth coverage of topics that your average "Learn C" book never even mentions.
Also, it's MORONIC that NOT A SOUL is recommending a book that'll teach you even ONE of the Top Ten most important algorithms of the 20th century.
You're getting outraged over nothing. This page you link to gives the top ten most influential algorithms for computing in science and engineering, not the overall most influential algorithms of programming in general. Reading through them, I didn't see more than a couple that would be useful for general application. They're mostly just for the researchers in these different fields. Besides, everyone knows the most important and influential algorithm of all time is Hello World.
For my money, I really like the O'Reilly books. They're detailed and informative without feeling overwhelming or distant. I would recommend most of those to a beginner in whatever subject it may be.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
One of the best programming concept books I have ever read is Jeffrey Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions, now available in a Second Edition. I've become somewhat disenchanted with O'Reilly lately; but this book remains in the stable of great ones for me - both for it's learning value and also for it's high readability, something unusual in a computer book. And here's one that's probably gonna seem off the wall; but Lingo Sorcery by Peter Small, although language specific, really helped to crystallize for me a lot of basic concepts that I have been able to turn around and apply to virtually every other language I've worked in.
Oops
Back in the late 80's, there were couple of "Bag Of Tricks" series of books, for C and C++, and for Programming in general.
There were extremely helpful.
I am sorry if I can't remember the exact title, someone borrowed my books and never return them.
If anyone still remember the title of those books ( something like "101 Programming Tips" ), please post them so I can go and search for them in used book stores.
Thanks in advance !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"The Moment", Kierkegaard (sometimes known as "Attack Upon Christendom")
"The Banquet", Kierkegaard (found in "Stages on Life's Way")
Kierkegaard's Journals & Papers
"Thus Spake Zarathustra", Nietzsche
The Lectures and Talks of Hakuin
The Zen Teachings of Huang Po
The Anecdotes of Diogenes
Chuang Tzu
The Gospel of Ramakrishna
The Dhammapada
The Diamond Sutra
"Poison for the Heart", Kevin Solway
"The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga", Paul Brunton (A good analysis of the way mind creates reality)
"The Way of Zen", Alan Watts (A good introduction to Buddhism)
As a pretty new user to the linux kernel, i think the above book gives a nice overview. It includes char,block,network drivers and some probing stuff: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive2/
You should check it out.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
It's a masterful tome written by, um, the masters.
Concise, direct, and challenging, this is one of the greatest examples of technical writing I've seen in any field. It contains everything you can, want, or possibly need, to know about C (in a scant 190 pages). It is one of the few essential computer books I've ever encountered.
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. -- Will Rogers
Book: "Fire in the Valley: The Making Of The Personal Computer"
Author: Paul Freiberger
An excellent book that tracks the invention and development of computers. Starts in the 1800's through to the Altair and beyond focusing mainly on the storys of Apple and Microsoft. There was a film made of this book called "Pirates in the Valley" starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs. I would recommend this book to anyone.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity.
Anything Pike writes is worth reading
I've included no books on C++ or object oriented
design because I hold the rather radical opinion
that they aren't very interesting. Pike's book
does more to explain how to program than any
book on patterns ever have.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
Once I saw this gem, I decided I had to have it for my shelf at work.
Badgers? Badgers! We don't need no stinkin' Badgers!
My favorite computer books EVER are the PHP Developer's Dictionary (SAMS, by Wyke, Walker and Cox) and PHP Developer's Coookbook (SAMS, by Sterling Hughes). Great organization, just-the-basics examples, even decent typography and layout! It's almost a shame that the language is continually evolving, 'cause I'd like to keep these on hand for a long time.
I also second everyone who's mentioned Code Complete.
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
As I interpret the question, seminal works on technical topics of all sorts qualify. In that spirit, I most highly recommend "Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus Thompson. Originally written in 1910 (I think. It's recently been republished), this is the book that finally enlightened me. After 3 years of advanced mathematics and an engineering degree, everything I knew about calculus was rote: I could come up with the answers, but not because I understood the underlying principles or basis, but because I could memorize procedures. After I got this book and read it, I finally understood what the hell it was all about. I don't know whether I was just a bad student before, had bad teachers, or simply was presented the material in a way that was incompatible with the way I learn. In any case, this book did it for me, and perhaps it will do the same for others.
One caveat: I read the original, not the current version, which Amazon says "In this major revision of the classic math text, Martin Gardner has rendered calculus comprehensible to readers of all levels." I'm loathe to recommend a book that I considered perfect in its earlier incarnation and that someone has 'revised,' so perhaps you'll want to search for the original.
I love the deitel & deitel books. Clear and concise.
Forget about everything else you've read so far. O'rielly books are best for C, C++, Perl, Python, PHP , System Administration, anything...
I agree completely!
After I got my copy of K&R, I was just amazed at how quickly it helped me figure out the more esoteric aspects of the C language.
I'm a comp sci student at present, and I think schools would be doing their students a favour if they made K&R a required text for some course, just to make sure everyone buys a copy. In terms of learning, this book is the equal of many courses.
A good follow-up, IMHO, is Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language." I wouldn't rate this text as being as strong as K&R (in large part because it is MUCH more wordy), but it is, I believe, the "definitive" guide to C++. It covers topics like classes, templates, and the STL in a very informative manner. As for Java, I believe that Sun's "The Java Tutorial" is very good. It's available at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/, and can be ordered in hard-copy. It's also available for download in HTMLHelp format at http://www.confluent.fr/javadoc/indexe.html.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Thou art a troll, sir, and, I should wager, a poorly paid and bitter one at that. Away with thee, 'fore I rain down fireballs and acid arrows upon thy head.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If you truly believe that those are the ten most important algorithms of the 20th century, you really need a change in perspective. Quicksort could certainly be put forward as one of the most important algorithms of all time in computer science. Most of the remaining algorithms mentioned are important for their mathematical basis and/or their contribution to the field of engineering, not for their contribution to computer science.
And of course, in order to make any use of these algorithms, it is important to have a good implementation of them. If you don't know how to write those "frickin for loops" and how to make use of your development tools of choice, you're going to get nowhere real fast. It's true that from a computer science perspective, many development languages or features in them are isomorphic and once you've learned it once, the rest is mostly just a different syntax. But you do have to learn it once, and well.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I think that was always true beyond a certain point. Most developers follow the same path: they start out with specifics (their first language, a particular I/O library) and as they learn more specifics, they start to see the generalities (procedural/OO/functional/etc. approaches, "pseudocode" for algorithms, concepts like controls/widgets and event-driven code in GUIs). There is always a need for good information on any given tool, be it a programming language, a library or whatever, but the distilled knowledge that transcends any specific tool will always be more useful for longer.
That I have to disagree with, though. The web is a great source of information for a few languages, particularly the less popular ones. It's a lousy source of information on good programming technique in many (C, C++, Java, etc), because most of what's there is written by enthusiastic but ill-informed authors, and they simply spread their poor style or incorrect knowledge.
Most languages do not change so fast that a good book will date too quickly to be useful. In various places I've programmed, there have been plenty of books on the shelf covering C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, FORTRAN and other languages, many dating from several years ago but still just as relevant today. Sure, there come certain cut-off points; books with only the Java 1.0 library in them or dating from before the C++ standard have limited use, now. But those cut-off points are relatively rare. Reading a good book takes only a few days, and even if the benefits last for a year or two, that's still a very sound investment.
The web can be good for keeping up with rapidly changing libraries (Java's, for example). Then again, if your library is changing so fast that books on it are obsolete before they're useful, perhaps you should slow down. This problem is usually caused by adding too much to a library too fast, and the consequent continual efforts to clean up the mess.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet. Godel, Escher and Basch by Douglas Hofstader. This is profound investigation into the fundamental theories that underly computer science. After reading this book everything else is just work. If you can understand Hofstader you have all the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings you need to really understand software.
The real joy is this book is not just meaningful it is also enormous fun. Hofstader covers some complex mathemetical ground (Turing machines, Cantorization, Godel's incompleteness theory) wrapped up in erudite and thought-provoking tales of the relationship of computer science, language, art and music.
Truly one of the great works of our field.
Sailing over the event horizon
I don't think Code Complete is only relevant to newbie programmers. Far from it, I know many who went into programming without any formal background in CS or programming theory, whose work is good more because of natural talent and enthusiasm than anything else. These people will make the effort to read a book like this if you give it to them, and they will go from being good to being great.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sounds like you didn't actually learn the lesson. Recursion and loops are mathematically equivalent - if you see a difference between the two, it's only in your head (and perhaps on the stack of a language that doesn't properly support it).
All of the most sophisticated languages available today make recursion a very natural part of their operation: the ML family, including OCaml; Haskell; and of course, Scheme. Here's a factorial function in ML:
All it says is "the factorial of 0 is 1; the factorial of n is n times the factorial of n-1". Of course, factorial might be called a naturally recursive function, but the point is that in languages that support recursion, recursion is as natural as looping, and in fact usually much clearer in terms of communicating what's happening.If you'd like to learn about recursion in a very natural way, try A Gentle Introduction to ML, which is an excellent tutorial. You don't have to get very far into it before it becomes obvious how useful and natural recursion can be.
C++: Problem solving with C++ - The Object of programming by Walter Savitch
Data Abstraction and Problem solving with C++ by Carrano, Helman and Veroff (both books were used in my Harvard course "introduction to computer-science"
Networking: TCP/IP Illustrated Volume I - W. Richard Stevens
Security/Honeynets: Know your enemy by the Honeynet Project
Perl: Perl for Dummies by Paul Hoffman
google.com - the best search engine for finding information (try groups.google.com)
I can pretty much find anything I need on the Internet now without having to blow ~$50.00 on some book that I'll reference a few times.
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
Is slashdot trying to egg the trolls on? Of course they are!! The trolls are some their most avide readers and posters. They are also very entertaining and get people (like me) to read the comments. I don't like the twice a day rule, but that probably does keep the trolls fresh and more entertaining, rather than redundant.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I can't actually find this book. Could you give me an ISBN number? This is a book about applied crytography right?
It's a bit formal, but Dijkstra's discipline of programing can really deepen your intuative understanding of what programing is all about, and how to be beyond confident your program does what is intended, to be certain of it.
- database design. Read Graeme Simsion's Data Modeling Essentials. This explains how to analyze proposed and existing business activities and accurately reflect them in a database schema. Knowing a lot about SQL or Oracle is not a substitute! A strong schema forces the database to do much of the work for you. A weak schema reduces the database to expensive passive storage.
- SQL. Read Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties. Work through the examples with Postgres or Oracle. (Knowledge is in the fingers.) Main benefit: the ability to craft a SELECT statement that generates a desired report with little or no postprocessing in the "host" language. On average, the database is going to be faster and less buggy at extracting, correlating and sorting data than any custom-written code. If you ever perform two SELECTs and knit the results together with custom code, your SQL knowledge may have room for improvement.
Geeks love introverted, clean, mathematical problems and hate ugly, fuzzy business-driven problems. That bias is reflected in the responses here - Knuth is the hands down favorite. While I don't dispute Knuth's value, the focus on algorithms reinforces the lamentable tendency to reinvent the database for each major application. The programmer with a knowledge of C and a head full of algorithms has in a sense a complete toolkit to take on the world, but the programmer with a high-level language and a relational database operates at higher leverage because he need not reinvent fundamental parts each time.For example, I learned many sorts in school. I have never used any of them at work. Perl has a built-in quicksort, and SQL has ORDER BY. I think you can assume that more energy and expertise went into Oracle's implementation of ORDER BY than you can bring to bear on average on a homemade sort.
- Tufte, Edward: I've already seen a few recommendations for his books, but they are so good I wanted to reiterate them. Even if you're not a UI person, these books are worth at least a flip through in the bookstore.
- Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- Visual Explanations
- Envisioning Information
- Cooper, Alan, About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Good book with lots of practical advice for designers.
- Johnson, Jeff, GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers. Concentrates more on the "don'ts" than the "do's" but still an excellent read. Well designed, too, so that you can go to exactly the right section to do a quick check of your work. Good for developers as well as designers, and designed with both audiences in mind.
- Jacobson, Robert (editor), Information Design. A collection of papers on general information architecture, grouped by topics. Probably the best read I've ever had on information architecture and design, even if I didn't agree with everything in it.
- Wildbur, Peter and Burke, Michael, Information Graphics: Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design. Good, hardcore success stories. The section about the signing in Schipol Airport and Dusseldorf Airport is a highlight. Each chapter has relevant case studies about design in various media, from in-car navigational displays to neighborhood maps for the blind.
- Flanagan, David, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. One of the only JavaScript books to treat JavaScript like a real language, as opposed to just concentrating on recipes for making mouse cursor trailers and other abominations. I haven't seen the newly-released edition yet.
- Schengili-Roberts, Keith, Core CSS. A fairly advanced text that I use regularly. Lots of examples. At the time I bought it, it was the only full CSS-2 reference I could find in print.
I also have several pure design books for various media--books on typography, graphic design, web graphics, technique books for Photoshop and Illustrator, and so forth. Those aren't precisely apropos, though.In addition to my UI books, I have a few other books that I'd classify as seminal:
I think that O'Reilly's has put out more quality and less fluffy technical books than any other publisher. Their books on Perl are Masterful, and they really care about the computer and technical topics that matter, not stupid stuff about "Windows ME Super Secrets"
I think that their stuff on Bioinformatics is great, because few others are covering that. Or books on just Regular Expressions. Other publishers might touch on something like that for 2 seconds, and then leave. I haven't seen anything written by them that gets your hopes up too much. They don't promise that you will Master C++ in 7 days, or 24 hours (which I think is what some of the people in my Com Sci classes thought they could do, but they failed, after trying to cram everything in in one night). They don't claim that programming games is easy, and that anyone can kick out quality game engines.
Alot of publishers put out these books that offer too much, often more than they really offer.
The books for dummies are ok for people who have never touched a computer, and don't really want to know much more than the basics, but they really aren't gonna do that much for you
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Here's probally one of the best lists of books available.
Every new programmer should be advised to Avoid UNIX from the beginning. Look at the torture of learning a cryptic language like shell. The options are driving all crazy. The previous learners have taken upon themselves to impose the stupid shell on the youngsters. No one had made any attempt to rewrite a NEW shell with simple commands. Take the example of the command tar. Can't they rewrite it like this. archive inputfolder=currentfolder outputfile=somefile overwrite=yes Once beginners avoid unix, it will teach a punishing lessons to companies like SUN and UNIX who will then agree to modify their behaviour. till that time, bye,bye Unix.
Looping is a very special case of recursion, isn't it. I am not a good programer for sure, but after fully grasping recursion I wonder why do we need loops at all. Maybe only to save some stack memory in special cases, but loops should be teached well after recursion, and only as a practical convenience or short cut.
:) (neither do I studied CS or CE). But any science should force you to study CS or at least advanced programing. It's a shame to see Economists using paper writen math in publications and not programs, or even Excel spreadshits for complex stuff which should have been a program really.
I'm not good at math, but will definetly take a look at this book
unfinished: (adj.)
The Feynman Lectures on Computation
Here's the list of all the books I've recommended to people in the past (usually people looking for books on a specific subject, though, not people looking for "good books.") Some of the URLs may be out of date.
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment - W.R. Stevens
http://www.kohala.com/start/apue.html
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/ss/0201563177
http://www.isbn.nu/0201563177
The C Programming Language - Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0131103628
http://www.isbn.nu/0131103628
Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets - Peter Van Der Linden
http://www.sun.com/books/catalog/vanderLinden/
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0131774298
http://www.isbn.nu/0131774298
The C++ Programming Language, Third Edition - Bjarne Stroustrup
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/3rd.html
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0201889544
http://www.isbn.nu/0201889544
The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference - Nicolai Josuttis
http://www.josuttis.com/libbook/
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0201379260
http://www.isbn.nu/0201379260
Programming Perl, 3rd Edition - Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0596000278
http://isbn.nu/0596000278
Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen, Lieserson, Rivest
http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~clr/
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/x/sm/0262032937
http://isbn.nu/0262032937
Open Source Development with CVS - Karl Fogel
http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/
(book has been replaced with a second edition)
- The Mythical Man Month
- Writing Solid Code
- PeopleWare
- The Timeless Way of Building
- The Cuckoo's Egg
- Effective C++, More Effective C++, Effective STL
- Extreme Programming Explained, Extreme Programming Explored, Extreme Programming In Practice
- Joel Spolsky's book on User Interface
- Design Patterns (but not before you've spent about three years using C++ extensively)
- Applied Cryptography
- all the documentation that came with the pre-Network Associates versions
- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's finding of fact against Microsoft
- the Peruvian Congressman's reply to MS-FUD
- comp.risks -- usually good for a laugh, often very sobering
- In The Beginning Was the Command Line
- Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind
- Orson Scott Card's "Ender" books: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind and Ender's Shadow (the latest one was a trifle weaker)
Lots of others, too, but those are the more techy-ish ones.Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
The Elements of Programming Style and Software Tools by Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger
Programming Pearls
by Jon Bentley
Code Complete
by Steve C McConnell (too bad more m$ofties have not read it)
The Psychology of Everyday Things, The Design of Everyday Things and The Invisible Computer : Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution
by Donald Norman
Apart from R.Stevens APUE and Network Programming books, there are two more general C books which have a great reputation but are, funnily enough, rarely mentioned:
1) Samuel P. Harbison, Guy L. Steele "C: A Reference Manual"
2) Peter van der Linden "Expert C Programming"
Volumes 1, 2, and 3. One, in particular, teaches you everything you need to know about networking protocols. Everything is broken out at the tcpdump level, and his demo network is well illustrated, so you can see how everything talks.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
The xxx for Dummiesvolumes are great resources. I've used them tons of times for survey-level forays into unfamiliar teritories. If you're a Reader (two-foot tall stack of pending material on your nightstand, a bedroom "decorated with books", and a lust for Henry Higgins' library from the Rex Harrison/Audrey Hepburn version of My Fair Lady), you should be able to scan through one of these tomes in an hour or two and come away with enough of an understanding of the subject to go find better, more in-depth material easily.
Plus, your local public library has many of them on the shelves, saving you the investment in books you'd rather not display in your bookcases!
Come on... this just looks like a stupid competition of who have read the most books -- I doubt people have even read through many of the books they suggest, or have considered why that book should be a must read.
It's similar to me listing all my CD's and labeling them Music you must have.
I consider myself rather skilled when it comes to computers/programming -- but even though I've read many of the books mentioned, I certainly wouldn't say they are must read -- Knuths The Art of Computer Programming seems to come up rather often, so does Design Patterns (during the recent years), but exactly what is it in these books that make them a must read? Is it simply so that you can discuss the content with your fellow programmer friends (or should I say brag about having skimmed the table of contents?).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against books -- I have 6 years of formal education behind me, but seeing people list the same hyped books just make me think that those people haven't really read anything else, and also have missed out on a lot of real computer science information left out of those popular books... not to mention the parent list, which list 10 books that in their title reveal that they are tied to C/C++ -- C/C++ is a practical language, but academically inferior, and only reading about that language certainly will limit your perspective -- besides, how much can these books teach you apart from the actual language? You should just get the language definition and then read books about all sorts of other topics, to get more general design and algorithm knowledge, not to mention getting your hands dirty by getting some experience!
Yes, I think you need a book that'll teach you this `algorithm'. Yes it's part of the top 10 and you are likely to use it in each and every one of your GUI programs deep inside a couple of do/while loops.
Please get some perspective.
In the O'Reilly series there are lots of truly excellent books, and quite a few lemons. For a truly horrible few check their RCS/SCCS offering or their C++ books.
I had given myself a task this summer and that was to teach myself PHP. Since i am fairly decent with HTML, it wasnt to difficult to read get the jist of PHP. I had gone to the local bookstore and found a great book that was very user friendly and it gave step by step instructions for anything you would want to write. The name of the book is "PHP:Fast and Easy Development". It is written by Julie C Meloni. I found it very easy to understand, and I think it is a grat book for anyone who has little to no knowledge of PHP.
"Knowledge is from books, Wisdom is from experiences"
by Jeff Prosise....the beast has like 1300+ pages and cost like $70. It's the single best book i have. errm, Microsoft Press. Yeah I know, i need to be modded down.
If you think
_The_Pragmatic_Programmer_ by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas is an excellent book containing many basic programming and project management tips. It is written in a clear style, making the information very accessible to any one. I suggest all new or relatively novice programmers pick up a copy and read it. Check out reviews and exerpts at: Amazon
skip
I really like this on line sql book, by Philip Greenspun. I doens't waste time.
Network Programming in Perl by Lincoln Stein is probally the best candidate for third book a Perl Programmer needs (after Programming Perl and Perl Cookbook). Of course few programmers ever get this far.
If your just going to program in plain C instead of C++, any of Steven Kochan's books are great. They are a little old, but still good. His Topic's in C is a good Unix system library reference.