Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?

Almost anything written by the inimitable LWN.net[1] — their feature-length articles, technical conference coverage, etc. Something that springs immediately to mind is their 7-part series[2] Linux kernel namespaces from 2013. The full series is linked to at the bottom of part 1:

- Namespaces in operation, part 1: namespaces overview — https://lwn.net/Articles/531114/ (2013)

You can see their entire kernel archives here[3]. And as to their excellent conference coverage, you can browse conferences by year[4]. Most recently, here's[5] their roundup of "Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management and BPF summit".

[1] https://lwn.net

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/531114/#series_index

[3] https://lwn.net/Kernel/

[4] https://lwn.net/Archives/ConferenceByYear/

[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/lsfmm2022/

James Gleick‘s “Chaos”[0] (history of chaos theory) and “The Information”[1] (history of information theory) are so beautifully and artfully written you might forget they’re technical. As close as (history of) science writing comes to poetry.

A lot drier but top marks for clarity: “Linear Algebra Done Right” by Axler.[2] It got me through both undergraduate and PhD math degrees. When something was confusing in a lecture or another textbook, I could always return to Axler for the most direct path from ignorance to understanding.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1... [2]: https://linear.axler.net/

I'll second Michael Kerrisk. Here's what I had to say about "The Linux Programming Interface" in an earlier post [1]:

    Covers some of the history of the Linux/Unix API, describes it in detail, has plenty of examples, compares different APIs that do similar things so you can make an informed choice (e.g. System V vs. POSIX message queues).

    If any book in this list stands out for me, it's probably this one. It might be partly due to the surprise factor of how enjoyable and well-written a 1000+ page, near-reference book is.

From that same list [1] I'll also highlight Graham Hutton, whose writing I find particularly good and clear. He also has a number of YouTube videos on functional programming and Haskell.

Someone also mentioned Julia Evans [2]. She makes complex topics more approachable.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23453286

[2] https://www.jvns.ca/

La Technique, Jacques Pepin

Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, Julia Child

These books are a combination of background information, recipe, and step by step instruction. So these are more a reference of how to write an implementation guide or Runbook, rather than how to describe an API or present architectural documents.

I also really liked Mastering Algorithms With Perl, and any of the For Dummies books on technical subjects.

I think the Turbo Pascal 3.0 manual[1] was one of the best printed manuals I ever owned. It alone was worth the price of the compiler.

One of the most complete (and useful!) books about an area of study I've found is The Art of Electronics[2] by Horowitz and Hill. They point out all the traps that are likely to be encountered by an engineer working with the components as they describe them, along with the various trade-offs.

1 - https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_borlandturVersion3.0Re...

2 - https://artofelectronics.net/