Beautiful Code is nice (O'Reilly, various authors). I'd recommend it. It is written in a lot of languages so will help open your eyes to new worlds.
Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
211–220 of 344 posts
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#212"Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry" by Susan Lammers.
https://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer-...
This book is from 1989, but it's a timeless and fascinating look at the minds of Bill Gates, Andy Hertzfeld (apple/mac), Dan Bricklin (visicalc), and 16 others.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#213Any computer themed book of Gerald M. Weinberg is a must read:
https://leanpub.com/u/jerryweinberg
If at first sight my may think that they are outdated and superficial, but you can't be more wrong.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#214I recognized my experience, and really liked:
Software Craftsmanship - The New Imperative, Pete McBreen
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1035377.Software_Craftsma...
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#215Release It! by Micheal Nygard. Excellent advice and patterns about building robust software.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#216I really like: - Code Complete by Steve McConnell - The Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau - The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
I really liked The Effective Engineer because it had more systems thinking behind rather just how to manage a code project.
It covers some really foundational concepts like idempotency which programmers don't often think about when architecting systems.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#217Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. I love this book.
I'll also +1 this, it is a great read. Has to be top 5 interesting books I have read over the years.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#218Effective Java (lots of good generic OOP advice) Implementing Domain Driven Design
Although I liked Effective Java a lot, and it does contain a lot of advice relevant to many OO languages - it is the opposite of language agnostic: It's very Java-specific. Much of the content is irrelevant except in Java itself; and some of it is the opposite of "Effective language X". For example, it has a section named "Prefer lists to Arrays"; any C++ programmer will tell you the opposite (and that goes down to s…
Of course a lot of it is Java-specific, but there's enough advice that seems relevant to $BOG_STD_OO_LANG that it's probably worthwhile for this purpose.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#219No one has mentioned The Little Schemer. Edit: Written in a question-answer style, it’s geared toward luring you into recursion and functional programming.
Love the Little Schemer! Lots of interesting and challenging questions!
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#220Code, the Hidden... is a great read