Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: What Should Every Programmer Read?

Posted by Soulskill on from the green-eggs-and-dereferenced-pointers dept.

An anonymous reader writes "There's a blog post floating around right now listing articles every programmer should read. I'm curious what articles, books, etc., Slashdot readers would add to this list. Should The Art of Computer Programming, Design Patterns, or Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs be on the list? What about The Mythical Man-Month, or similar works that are about concepts relating to programming? Is there any code that every programmer should take a look at? Obviously, the nature of this question precludes articles about the nitty-gritty of particular languages, but I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in those, too. So if you can think of a few articles that every C++ programmer (or Perl, or Haskell, or whatever) should know, post those too."

4 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. The story of Mel by quietwalker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For example, here; http://www.catb.org/jargon/htm...

  2. The Fortran Coloring Book by davidwr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wish I'd read Roger Kaufman's book before I started programming. It would've helped a lot.

    Here's a few pages to get a taste of the style: http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner...

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  3. Re:If you haven't read The Myythical Man-Month... by VortexCortex · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No need. The "Mythical Man Month" is merely a series of special cases of the law of diminishing returns and/or The Planning Fallacy.

    It's much more efficient to say: "Too many chiefs and not enough braves is bad, and it will always take longer than expected."

  4. Strunk & White: The Elements of Style by RandCraw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The best preparation for becoming a good programmer (or scientist or engineer) is to learn how to organize your thoughts and then address only what is necessary and sufficient to accomplish a given task.

    I know no book that teaches clarity of thought better than Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style". Clear writing and great coding share a common wellspring.