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Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

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Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#151

Post by bennysomething »

carabiner wrote: post #148
bennysomething wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I was working through sedgewick course on Coursera, I hit a bit of a wall, it seemed like one of the assignments was just really badly explained. However lots of other students were fine so it's probably me. I considered getting the grokking booking instead. What's the main difference between sedgewick and the grok algo book?

Do you remember which assignment? I did the first one, percolation and hooo boy, that was a trip. The problem statement buries the key library that you use for everything at the bottom of the page. Did get it eventually though.

Hi, yeah week 3 collinear points, I had to post a number of questions on the message board due to language being ambiguous. In the end I could only get 74 percent and I had no idea why. I spent hours and hours and hours on it.

Yes percolation was a tough first assignment.

Week two was linked lists and really straight forward.

Also I found Sedgwick's explanations too terse, I ended up on YouTube countless times watching other videos that helped me get what he was saying.

I think it's probably me though, it's a Princeton course so I guess it's aimed at the very bright!

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#153

Post by jhgb »

danans wrote: post #132

I liked Algorithms by Dasgupta-Papadimitriou-Vazirani http://algorithmics.lsi.upc.edu/docs/Dasgupta-Papadimitriou-... It's written in an approachable, almost conversational style. Beyond that, for a broader view of algorithms and computing that includes AI, there's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell/Norvig. My favorite part of that book is actually the "Foundations of Artificial Intelligence" which…

Upvote for P&D&V; a top-notch free (CC BY-ND 3.0 CZ) Czech algorithm textbook (http://pruvodce.ucw.cz/) was based primarily on their book (because it's excellent!).

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#154

Post by JeremyNT »

mindcrime wrote: post #131
nomemory wrote: post #48

I had a good relantionship with Segdewick's books, before being turned off by Cormen a few times. They are less math focused, and overall have a beginner friendliness to them. They won't take you by the hand an explain things like you are 5, but nevertheless they are more easy to digest. Also as a non-popular opinion in this current age, I recommend you to learn how to implement your algorithms in C, rather than an e…

I'm a big fan of Sedgewick's books myself. I like how he has parallel series of his books, for different programming languages. So you get "Algorithms in Java" or "Algorithms in C++" or whatever, depending on your preference. I think he has at least C, C++, and Java versions. https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rs/

Do you know if there's much difference between these beyond the language used? It seems like he's only updating the Java version these days, and that's what is used in the Coursera course. From what I can tell he's collapsed it down to just a java version entitled "Algorithms" that hit 4th edition in 2011.

I'd rather have the exercises / examples in C but not if it means swimming upstream.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#155

Post by aidenn0 »

willhinsa wrote: post #101
kevinventullo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll sort of second this by saying that Sedgewick’s Algorithms I/II courses on Coursera are top-notch and completely free. He is a truly thoughtful educator. Completing those courses was probably the most useful thing I did when prepping for interviews as part of a career change 6 years ago.

Awesome!! Any other tips you have for someone going through that career change as well? I have a Mathematics BA, and worked as an actuary. I've self taught myself varying degrees of SQL, Python, JavaScript, and C, but I've found it difficult not to feel like an imposter without formal qualifications, even though I know I'm a capable learner and love solving challenging problems.

Discrete math is to Computer Science as Calculus is to Physics. If you still remember any discrete math from your Math BA, you should have zero issue consuming any undergraduate textbook on theoretical CS.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#156

Post by aidenn0 »

vngzs wrote: post #90

Surprised no one seems to have mentioned the godfather of CS books, The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie [0]. At first glance, it's a programming language book rather than a "computer science" book, but you probably won't think that by the time you're finished ... First, every operating system you'll use - likely in your lifetime - is a giant mountain of C code. From the kernel all the way…

FWIW, I liked Plum's "Learning to program in C" far better than K&R's book. I can't recommend Plum today though because it's pre-ANSI so the code all uses K&R style declarations.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#157

Post by irony123 »

skripp wrote: post #50

”Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software” by Charles Petzold. It will take you on a journey from a lightbulb to assembly language. It’s extremely well written and I wish there were more books like it.

Second this. A great book for understanding how computers work at a low level.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#158

Post by yakubin »

decebalus1 wrote: post #104
yakubin wrote: post #10

I'm currently going through TAOCP [1]. So far, seems pretty good (although I found one mistake in an exercise). Also, I can never recommend Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective [1] enough. (Also features a rare mistakes in an exercise or two, but that's detail.) And for network protocols, Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP [3] was just great (you only need volume 1). I've read Stevens' books on socket and IP…

> I'm currently going through TAOCP[1]. When someone without a formal CS career is asking for a CS fundamentals book and you're dropping TAOCP I'm not sure if this is a humble brag or an attempt at trolling.

I don't have a formal CS career either. In one of the other comments someone wrote they read it being a high school dropout. Different people like different things. Note also that submission author studied chemistry, so they did get their fair share of training in mathematics.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#159

Post by tomstuart »

I don’t think you’ll find a better return on investment than working through The Elements of Computing Systems (https://www.nand2tetris.org/) which recently got a second edition. It won’t teach you how to make a rendering engine, or even necessarily any data structures or algorithms, but it will give you a big-picture understanding of the practical fundamentals (literally “what is a computer and how does it really work?”) which you can then use to direct your own learning based on what you want to know next.

Re: Ask HN: I'm looking for a good book on the fundamentals of CS

#160

Post by watersb »

Older books on computing can really help. When computers were unfamiliar to almost everyone, the author took care to walk through the fundamentals of computer science.

Jon Bentley. "Programming Pearls" https://www.google.com/books/edition/Programming_Pearls/kse_...

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(not about Perl the computer language, but rather pearls or unexpected jewels of wisdom)

An accessible style, a collection from the Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery (CACM). Also used in a first-year course of computer science at US Naval Academy.

Simple problems are discussed in detail, often leading to subtle insight that yields better performance.

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