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Your Favorite Tech / Eng. / CS Books?

Posted by kdawson on from the art-of-computer-programming dept.

chris_eineke writes "I like to read and to collect good books related to computer science. I'm talking about stuff like the classic textbooks (Introduction to Algorithms 2nd ed., Tanenbaum's Operating Systems series) and practitioners' books (The Practice of Programming, Code Complete) and all-around excellent books (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Practical Common Lisp). What's your stocking-stuffer book this Christmas? What books have been sitting on your shelves that you think are the best ones of their kind? Which ones do you think are -1 Overrated? (All links are referral-free.)"

9 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol 1 by W. Richard Stevens. by whistl · · Score: 5, Informative

    The classic IP networking book

  2. Best books? by librarybob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As I'm a librarian I'm extremely interested in what people will suggest. The opinion of practitioners is a lot more relevent than that of book reviewers.

  3. K&R2 by dprovine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Still the standard for programming language books, IMHO. I tell people to work all the way through it, from start to finish, and do every exercise until it works exactly as it should.

    C isn't a perfect programming language, by any means -- no language is -- but writing lots of programs in it gives you a feel for the low-level things a computer has to do.

  4. My very favorite by dzfoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    My very favorite technical book is Programming Perl, a.k.a. The Camel Book, by Larry Wall et al. It is indeed a rare gem to find a book with such complex technical concepts, that is so much fun to read, you can take it with you on the train commute, or on holiday, and read it from cover to cover.

              -dZ.

    --
    Carol vs. Ghost
    ...Can you save Christmas?
  5. Best Project Management Book Ever by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mythical Man Month. A classic. There are no silver bullets! As true now as then.

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  6. The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth by Christopher_Olah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's good. I'm going to have to disagree with you on it being overrated. It's dense and long but it has lots of good things. I've learned a lot, despite only having started reading it recently.

  7. Design Patterns by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Object-Oriented-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0201633612/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230057946&sr=8-1/

    If you're doing oject oriented, there's no better place to start looking when you you're trying to learn good software design. I know, some people say patterns are overused, but they are essential to understanding and designing complex software.

    1. Re:Design Patterns by Rary · · Score: 5, Informative

      Agreed. And I would add: Refactoring by Fowler and friends.

      --

      "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

  8. Re:Modern C++ Design by Slicebo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Minor correction to your post: It actually refers to parsing the leaf level (the lower ridge) of a B (binary) tree.

    Or (to put it more concisely):

    A parse-ridge in a pair tree.