Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read? • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by devnonymous » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:41 AM UTC

The Aosa series of books are brilliant imho:

Titles :

  * The Architecture of Open Source Applications (volumes I and II)
  * The Performance of Open Source Applications
  * 500 lines or less

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

#22

Post by danielbarla » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:42 AM UTC

stinos wrote: post #10

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

Second the Pragmatic Programmer, however: I read it when I just started programming (like not much more experienced than basic hello world and some fiddling) and, looking back, didn't really get it. I mean, I got the principles, but couldn't apply it as there was just not enough experience for the higher level abstract stuff. I recently read it again and it makes complete sense now, but I ddn't learn much new from it…

Indeed, the Pragmatic Programmer book's subtitle is "from Journeyman to Master", and that's exactly what journeyman is supposed to mean - someone who's a few years into it, not bad, but not great (yet?).

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

#23

Post by dustingetz » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:43 AM UTC

Joy of Clojure & SICP. To a lesser extent, Learn You a Haskell. 7 Languages in 7 Weeks is an excellent good baby step book if these are too daunting. 7in7 was my first intro to many new ideas.

Any language worth learning has this property of influencing the way you think forever. TDD, Code Complete &co are all very integrated into mainstream industry and are no longer novel. If you find yourself needing to recommend your colleagues to read Code Complete you might consider working on the skills to get a better job.

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

#24

Post by throwaway7645 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:45 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #11

Thinking Forth http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/ Teaches you to think simple and elegant.

Reading this one after Starting Forth. I wonder how many have read this that have never written a line of Forth?

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

#25

Post by throwaway7645 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:47 AM UTC

kris-s wrote: post #5

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. I love this book.

Very good. A good book to go with it is: Learning Computer Architecture with the Raspberry Pi.

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

#26

Post by petercooper » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:48 AM UTC

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.

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

#27

Post by rusanu » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:50 AM UTC

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

I second Code Complete

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

#28

Post by mikekchar » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:51 AM UTC

Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. It's a bit hard to wrap your brain around the Java and C++ examples unless you have experience with them, but the techniques are timeless. You may need to practice them extensively before you understand how important they are, though. In a recent book club we did at work, a common complaint was, "This just looks like common sense". Indeed it does... though the common sense is uncommonly hard to find when you are staring at the actual situations this book helps you with.

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

#29

Post by dyarosla » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:51 AM UTC

I've really enjoyed "Dependency Injection in .NET"- despite the name, the book itself is really 95% about Dependency Injection and relatively language agnostic. It exhibits a bottom-up approach to using inversion of control in a way that makes sense and is scalable.

https://www.manning.com/books/dependency-injection-in-dot-ne...

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

#30

Post by timclark » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 11:52 AM UTC

Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans

Implementing Domain Driven Design by Vaughn Vernon

Clean Code by Robert Martin

I think you will find some code in all of the books but the ideas are applicable almost everywhere.