Its odd that no one mentioned it but head first into design patterns is a great/light book on design patterns....
I loved this book. It really helped me understand the power and effectiveness of OO design when used correctly.
Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
81–90 of 344 posts
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#82If I can suggest a talk rather than a book, "Hammock Driven Development" by Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) is one of my favourites.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#83The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
One of the first books I read that led me on to craploads of other books. It mentioned Peopleware, Mythical Man Month and just opened up a whole world of books about programming and being a programmer that were not 'do this then that to achieve Y'.
Gonna have to pick that one up again and see what else I can glean from it years later :)
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#84Structure and Interpretation of Computer Program (it's written in scheme but it's mostly for convenience and its lack of syntax). Definitely the best book I've read on programming.
I'd find it quite hard to apply lessons from SCIP using java or c...
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#85- The Pragmatic Programmer - The Practice of Programming - The Mythical Man Month - The Cathedral and the Bazaar - The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Introduction to Algorithms - Hackers and Painters Some of these do contain mixed language code examples, but they are expressed in a way to be agnostic. A problem is a problem; in any language.
The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
They mean 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by the late Robert M. Pirsig - I second the recommendation
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#86- The Pragmatic Programmer - The Practice of Programming - The Mythical Man Month - The Cathedral and the Bazaar - The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Introduction to Algorithms - Hackers and Painters Some of these do contain mixed language code examples, but they are expressed in a way to be agnostic. A problem is a problem; in any language.
The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about how people see quality.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#87Structure and Interpretation of Computer Program (it's written in scheme but it's mostly for convenience and its lack of syntax). Definitely the best book I've read on programming.
Second this. I'm making my way through the book now. I'm impressed by how well it articulates concepts from the ground-up.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#88Any good book on statistics would be a huge asset, as well as a book about debugging strategies.
'The Cartoon Guide to Statistics', Gonick and Smith, is surprisingly substantial for its style and target, an easy way to get started.
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#89Programming Pearls. Great short book to get you thinking creatively and how to dissect algorithmic problems, language agnostic with pseudocode examples. Non-programming but still highly relevant for a professional programmer: Mythical Man Month, and Peopleware.
I bought this and lent it to someone shortly after I bought it, I guess I'm gonna have to buy it again!
Re: Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?
#90Working 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…
I just finished reading this book yesterday. I am not an expert in refactoring but the book seems too old, although most advises could be still useful. Anyway, today I found a new book by the author: Brutal Refactoring: More Working Effectively with Legacy Code. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good review of the book on the Internet. But I think it could be more useful.