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Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

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Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#51
post #48

The requirements seem a bit unclear to me, but I'll toss a couple of titles into the ring: The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (Alan Cooper) makes the case that user interfaces can and should be easier to understand. I think in the years since this book was written, there has been much improvement in the UI world overall, but still worth thinking about. Expert C Programming (Deep C Secrets) (Peter van der Linden) goes…

Added both to my personal lists! Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#52
Ruby Under the Microscope: http://patshaughnessy.net/ruby-under-a-microscope

The CS Detective: https://nostarch.com/csdetective

Mazes for Programmers: http://www.mazesforprogrammers.com/

A Curious Moon: https://bigmachine.io/products/a-curious-moon/

xchg rax,rax: https://www.xorpd.net/pages/xchg_rax/snip_00.html

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#53

Ruby Under the Microscope: http://patshaughnessy.net/ruby-under-a-microscope The CS Detective: https://nostarch.com/csdetective Mazes for Programmers: http://www.mazesforprogrammers.com/ A Curious Moon: https://bigmachine.io/products/a-curious-moon/ xchg rax,rax: https://www.xorpd.net/pages/xchg_rax/snip_00.html

> xchg rax,rax

Yes!!!

Great list, thanks for sharing.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#57

Pragmatic Programmer https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...

> And again, let's skip books that you might actually consider required reading for experienced developers.

Would be a great suggestion in a generic good books list but this one is about books that are not pragmatic!

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#58

The Psychology of Computer Programming by Gerald Weinberg. There's a silver anniversary edition, that's the one to get. It has the author's commentary framing each chapter where he reflects on the contents.

That looks very interesting. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought Knuts Literate Programming book ( https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/lp.html ) was extremely interesting, the paper "the errors of TeX" which is a part of it is one of the more interesting papers I've read. I haven't read any of Knuth's stuff because doesn't having 7 volumes kinda imply it can't possibly be well edited? Or maybe I really do just need to suck it up and read these books. I know it's…

> I haven't read any of Knuth's stuff because doesn't having 7 volumes kinda imply it can't possibly be well edited? That's a very bad assumption in this case. The contents of TAOCP are very well edited, just massive in scope and it's one man putting it all together. However, those aren't his only books. Concrete Mathematics is a completed text that expands on, in particular, the math in Chapter 1 of TAOCP. Literate…

Just read his introduction to generating pseudo-random numbers or his sketch of a proof of Benfords law in Seminumerical Algorithms. Excellent stuff.

For moderately impractical, look at tape sorting in Sorting and Searching.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#60
I don't know if mine qualify and how HN feels about self-promotion, but I can't resist the opportunity to mention my project.

I'm working on a collection of 12 books about software development and IT: https://dev-concepts.dev/table-of-contents

I try not to get down to the level of atoms and molecules, but I'm going deep down the rabbit hole, and it's quite fun!

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