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?

OutDated?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Re:OutDated?

[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?

[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?

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.