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

Post by chii » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 3:09 PM UTC

yomly wrote: post #173

chii wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you start to get to the parts about abstracting a circut, and making it streamy/lazy, you'd find that the impl details of a non-lazy language can make it more difficult than it needs to be. Also, as a beginner, you don't want both the difficulties of contepts _and_ the difficulties of language to combine to stop you from learning as effectively.

But Scheme isn't a lazy language - granted, you'll need a language that supports first class functions to lift their implementation of a stream though. >Also, as a beginner, you don't want both the difficulties of contepts _and_ the difficulties of language to combine to stop you from learning as effectively. Are you referring to the need to learn Scheme to work through SICP? While the asker specifically requested la…

Post by MR_HANDS » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 3:11 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #187

Okay, here's some I haven't seen mentioned yet, although these may be pretty far afield for you: Drift into Failure , by Sidney Dekker. Studies failure analysis in complex systems, and basically argues that our classic reductionist/scientific method approach is the wrong way to study complex engineering failures. How Buildings Learn , by Stewart Brand. This isn't about programming. It's about architecture, in the bui…

Post by suyash » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

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.

Post by pvg » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #147

chii wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Post by neves » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 3:17 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #26

Programming Pearls by Joe Bentley. And its followup. It's old but it does get you thinking about things. I'd also recommend The Linux Programming Interface by Michael Kerrisk as it teaches so much about what makes modern Unix what it is but.. it's arguably quite oriented around C by necessity. It's not a "C book" by any means though.