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Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?

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Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?

#144

Post by ctrlp »

If you consider C to be language-agnostic, here are some gems. These are personal favorites as much for their excellent writing as for their content.

The Unix Programming Environment was published in 1984. I read it over 20 years later and was astonished at how well it had aged. For a technical book from the 80's, it is amazingly lucid and well-written. It pre-dates modern unix, so things have changed but much that goes unstated in newer books (for brevity) is explicit in UPE. (Plus, the history itself is illuminating.) It gave me a much deeper understanding of how programs actually run over computer hardware. Examples in C are old-school and take a bit of close reading but oh so rewarding. https://www.amazon.com/Unix-Programming-Environment-Prentice...

Mastering Algorithms in C. Another fantastically well-written book that shows (with practical examples) how to implement common algorithms. This is just such a great book! https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Algorithms-Techniques-Sorti...

Also:

Code (Petzold). This one is truly language-agnostic. Others have mentioned it already. Can't recommend enough if you're iffy on the internals of computers and programming. https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softw...

Write Great Code (Volumes I and II). Randall Hyde's books are fantastic explications of the underlying computer operations. Examples are in assembly or pseudo-code but easy to understand. https://www.amazon.com/Write-Great-Code-Understanding-Machin...

Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?

#145

Post by H_Romeu_Pinto »

henrik_w wrote: post #3

I really like: - Code Complete by Steve McConnell - The Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau - The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

> - Code Complete by Steve McConnell

It has good parts. But it has some very bad parts too, when it reinforces myths that, IMO, are very wrong (e.g.: cone of uncertainty, X times better programmer, etc).

I'd recommend to read it with care.

> - The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

After many years I still read parts of it, again and again. And I still like it.

Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?

#146

Post by pjmlp »

A few ones:

"Algorithms and Data Structures" from Niklaus Wirth.

"Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition" from Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein.

"The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management" from Richard Jones and Antony Hosking

"Code Complete" from Steve McConnell

"From Mathematics to Generic Programming" from Alexander Stepanov and Daniel Rose

Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?

#147

Post by jerf »

chii wrote: post #84
d0m wrote: post #40

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Program (it's written in scheme but it's mostly for convenience and its lack of syntax). Definitely the best book I've read on programming.

I'd find it quite hard to apply lessons from SCIP using java or c...

These are indications of the weakness of Java and C, not SICP.

I do not mean this as empty snark; it is something you can see across the board in programming language evolution. It is virtually impossible to propose a new general-purpose programming language today that does not have closure support, which is the biggest thing you're finding missing from C and Java to use the techniques in SICP. (It is not the only thing, but it is the biggest thing.) You'll note Java is going to bolt them on soon, or recently bolted them on, but it'll be another decade before Java is using them fluently either way.

I've often recommend SICP to self-taught programmers; it is not a complete substitute for a computer science education, but it is a concentrated dose of the stuff you're probably missing out on. Expect it to be the work of some months to work through it. However, in the end, a self-taught programmer who has also worked through SICP systematically and carefully is probably a better programmer than 80% of the modern computer science graduates nowadays. (If you want to avoid that fate, oh ye who are still in school, take the freaking compilers course at the very least. Do your peers complain that it is hard? Then maybe it is a good one.)

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