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

Post by therealdrag0 » Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #181

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #58

Some of the most interesting books I've read in support of my software-development work are: * "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, & Tools" by Aho et al. (i.e., "the dragon book") * "Data Flow Analysis: Theory and Practice" by Khedker et al. * "Understanding MySQL Internals" by Sasha Pachev. * "Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" by Gray and Reuter. * "Fundamentals of Wireless Communication" by Tse and V…

I would recommend Schneier's Cryptography Engineering (or its predecessor) Practical Cryptography over Applied Cryptography, given the question. I agree Applied Cryptography is a very interesting book, but that's because I'm a crypto nerd. For someone looking to improve general software engineering skills, I think the other books do a better job of presenting best practices and the understanding behind them, with a b…

Post by SourPatch » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:33 AM UTC

steego wrote: post #136

A really fun read is The New Turing Omnibus. I'd call it fun reading rather than required reading. Basically, it's a collection of small fun loosely related chapters about various ideas in computer science. It's the kind of book where you can open it up in the middle and start reading. Over the years, I must have purchased 5 or 6 copies because I keep giving them away.