A New Bible For Programmers?

KZigurs writes "The wonders of online publishing... If you are ready to take on a heroic task and read thru all 976 pages of Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming (draft) (pdf file, 3MB, intro here) written by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi you won't regret it. Just finished reading it and I feel like I have read the Bible. And who knows? It has the potential, and since current de facto books about programming are aging with increasing speed it very well may become one. (Please read the intro to get more detailed outlook at topics covered)
Anyone before heard about Oz?"

Comments

Newer Copy Available

[erasmus_]

I'm not sure why the article links to the April 26th draft version of the book, when the intro page itself has the link to the much newer June 5th version.

http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/booksingle.pd f

I look forward to reading it from the intro, however, might be really worthwhile.

So..

[dr ttol]

Does this bible also make the prediction that something huge will happen at the end of the millennium?

Google's Cached HTML Version

[IdleMindUI]

It appears that the site is already...umm...slashdotted. Google's cached HTML version can be found here.

Very interesting, also for non-programmers

[tsa]

I am not a programmer but this seems to me a very interesting book for people who want to have a detailed yet general (hope you understand what I mean) idea of what's going on inside their computers as they are hammering their keyboards. Seriously, popular books on computer programming usually learn you how to use a certain programming language and not the concepts behind writing a computer program so this is a must-read for all people that want to learn to program computers.

Another Bible

[Ann Coulter]

Design Patterns.

Already slashdotted?

[stienman]

The google cache of the pdf (converted to HTML by google) is here.

-Adam

OutDated?

[peripatetic_bum]

since current de facto books about programming are aging with increasing speed

I'm sorry to sound susppicious, but the concepts of programming are not out dated. The problem is tat programming has actaully become (or rather started out) incredible sophisticated and that a lot of programmers now have not been properly trained (be it by self study or a rigour CS program). And that flurry of programming books are more lke cookbooks and dont really *teach* anything anymore.

I find it rather hard to believe that Knuth's analysis of algorithms of Sorting and Searching have/will become out dated. I think his title the ART of COmputer Programming was always incredible ironic because he has done more than anyone else to turn into a real science, which it is now, and by which I mean that it has hypothesis that can now be tested. His book lay the foundation for it and I doubt any new programming book, short of specilized computer journal articles have done much to advance programming.

Re:OutDated?

[Asprin]

I think his title the ART of COmputer Programming was always incredible ironic because he has done more than anyone else to turn into a real science, which it is now, and by which I mean that it has hypothesis that can now be tested.

I disagree.

Real science has proper control groups and reproducible results. Programming has neither.




[/me grins, ducks and runs]

Re:OutDated?

[Oscaro]

Gnahhhrrrrg I keep hearing this argument over and over. But knowing how to do things right (and why) is the ONLY way to survive to new problems and situations that the STL does not solve.

That's one of the reason I hate Java. Its huge library lets you write programs without having to learn or understand what the hell you are doing.

Thanksfully, when I learned to program, I had to code my own hashtables.

Re:OutDated?

[Violet Null]

I think (hope) you're just pretending to be sarcasm-challenged when taking the parent post seriously.

But, now that I'm on the subject...

Once you've gotten your first non-reproducible bug, you'll see what the parent poster was talking about with reproducible results. An awry pointer can cause all sorts of havoc that's incredibly difficult to track down, and, even worse, it often won't break the same way twice.

As for your example of algorithms: "better" is rather subjective, especially in regards to sorting algoriths. Although quicksort might be faster for general purpose use, there are plenty of algorithms that can beat it in certain conditions. And, programming being what it is, you can never be sure that your program will be running under those certain conditions or not.

Re:OutDated?

[Asprin]

Well, I was actually making an ironic joke, but since you ask, I can certainly give it another shove closer to the edge of the cliff, so to speak.

First, let me say that I was actually serious when I said that programming (just like mathematics and logic) is not science.

This opinion was not formed without a fair amount of consideration (BS in math, MA in physics). We could argue semantics for many moons, but my definition of a "science" goes something like "A course of inquiry which employs the proper scientific method: only ask questions you can actually answer, employ direct empirical observation with proper control groups, verify the results independently (one trial does not a conclusion make), and reserve nature as the authority - you must maintain a complete willingness to be proven wrong."

Mathematics, Programming and Logic work this way because they conform to a different kind of rigor for validation -- namely, constructive or analytical "proof", which is not, by its nature, empirical. I'm not trying to refute, denounce or demean non-scientific studies, I just want to point out that "scientific" means something specific, and it does not apply to those other areas I mentioned.

BTW, one pet peeve of mine is when in sci-fi movies, the dude says "There has to be some kind of scientific explanation for this." Well, no: METHODS are scientific, not explanations.

Also, please note that many areas of study: Psychology, Sociology and Political Science (as well as certain areas of Biology and Chemistry -- needle, needle, jab, jab, ha-ha!) *could* be scientific in some cases, but typically aren't because they are populated by dumb researchers employing horribly poor experminental and analytical techniques.

So, having said that, I will conclude with the "on-topic" tongue-in-cheek gags:

Reproducibility: (In WRITING programs, not running them)
Since all developers on a project typically work from the same source tree, no programming results have ever been independently verified except the programming assignments in textbooks.

Control Groups:
Well, maybe you have a point on this one. I suppose a NOP loop would qualify as an effective control, but how do you halt the experiment?

Re:OutDated?

[Arandir]

Just like long division, there are times when you need to write your own search or sort algorithm. Why?

1) Sometimes it's easier to write your own sort than to write a weird ass adaptor for your weird ass data.

2) Sometimes "good enough" isn't "good enough" and you need that extra 15% performance increase you get for writing a search/sort customized for your data.

3) Actually knowing how stuff works is good for the brain. After you learn basic bonehead algorithms, take some time to learn long division as well.

4) Just to prove that you aren't a code monkey destined for the dustheap of history when you turn thirty.

Re:OutDated?

[H*(BZ_2)-Module]

I agree, and I think much of the misinterpretation comes because many are commenting on Knuth without ever having really read it. This comes from the introduction to TOACP.V3 2nd edition(which is from 1998 by the way, not so ancient):

The title "Sorting and Searching" may sound as if this book is only for those systems programmers who are concerned with the preperation of general-purpose sorting routines or applications to information retrieval. But in fact the area of sorting and searching provides an ideal framework for discussing a wide variety of important general issues: How are good algorithms discovered? How can algorithms and programs be improved? How can the efficiency of algorithms be analyzed mathematically? How can a person choose rationally between different algorithms for the same task? In what sense can algorithms be proved "best possible"? How does the theory of computing interact with practical considerations? How can external memories like tapes, drums, or disks be used efficiently with large databases? Indeed, I believe that virtually every important aspect of programming arises somewhere in the context of sorting and searching!

Mozart & Oz in the book

[joelparker]

The book uses the Mozart Programming System

Mozart & Oz are well-developed and worth a look--
your programming may improve because of them.

Cheers, Joel

p.s. here are quick excerpts:

The Mozart Programming System is an advanced development platform for intelligent, distributed applications. The system is the result of a decade of research in programming language design and implementation, constraint-based inference, distributed computing, and human-computer interfaces...

Mozart is based on the Oz language, which supports declarative programming, object-oriented programming, constraint programming, and concurrency as part of a coherent whole...

We have developed many applications including sophisticated collaborative tools, multi-agent systems, and digital assistants, as well as applications in natural language understanding and knowledge representation, in scheduling and time-tabling, and in placement and configuration.

Oz

[thelenm]

Yep, we had to use Oz in a Programming Languages & Semantics course I took in grad school. All I really remember is that it used "constraints" rather than "values" for variables. For example, a variable doesn't necessary contain a single value, but it might contain the constraint "greater than 100, less than 2000". And you can do all kinds of stuff with intersection and union of constraints, and... ahh, that's all I can coerce out of my brain. I thought I had repressed it forever. :-)

Note about the Oz language

[Anm]

For those curious why this books uses Oz as it's language of choice, it is one of the few, if not the only language, to support the many popular paradigms of programming:
* procedural, like C & BASIC
* object-oriented, like Ada & Java
* functional, like Scheme & Haskel
* declarative, like Prolog

It that way, this book is a good way to keep your mind open to different approaches to doing things.

Anm

Mirror Here

[Bluetrust25]

It's mirrored here courtesy of SurveyComplete.

Incedentally, I highly recommend the book Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve C McConnell. It tought me more about programming than the rest of my computer book bookshelf!

Another great resource is Safari. It's a web service that for a fee, allows you to view O'reilly, Que, and Sams books online. I find the code search feature to be invaluable. Cheap way to read technical books.

hmm

[rpeppe]

I'm a bit dubious about a book that talks about the "substitution property" of objects without once mentioning Liskov's substitution principle, or that talks about message passing concurrency wthout mentioning Tony Hoare's CSP.

Is this book really as authoratitive as it tries to appear?

I Know How a Transistor Works!

[Sunlighter]

There are two kinds of transistors, bipolar junction transistors and field-effect transistors. Bipolar junction transistors are sandwiches made from two layers of N-type silicon separated by a layer of P-type silicon. A bipolar junction transistor has three terminals: an emitter, a base, and a collector. The emitter and collector are connected to the N-type silicon (on opposite sides of the sandwich) and the base terminal is connected to the P-type silicon. When a small voltage is put on the base terminal, current is allowed to flow from the emitter to the collector. (This is for an NPN-type transistor. There is also a PNP type which is the opposite and works with negative voltages instead of positive.)

A field-effect transistor has three terminals, too, but they are called the source, the gate, and the drain. The source and the drain are connected by a channel made of N-type silicon, but the channel is somewhat narrowed by P-type silicon in the middle which is connected to the gate terminal. When you put a voltage on the gate, it creates an electric field which chokes off the current flow from the source to the drain. There is also a type of field-effect transistor with a channel made of P-type silicon, and the voltages are negative.

I have done better than implementing a sort algorithm; I implemented keyless 2-3 trees in a functional style and thus speeded up my LR(1) parser generator from 27 minutes to 4 minutes.

The work of people like us makes the work of people like you possible. So: nyah nyah na-nyah nyah.

But don't look for...

[sohp]

Based on reading the Preface and a brief scan of the table of contents, this book is interesting for what the authors do not cover, by design. Nothing on static typing, nothing on algorithms, AI, databases, or numerical techniques.

To some, leaving these topics out of a "bible" would amount to extreme heresy. The content of this book owes more of its lineage to The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs than The Art of Computer Programming.