One book that I've enjoyed a lot is the Programming Pearls book by Jon Bentley. It's informative, concise and surprisingly light.
Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
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Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#82Anything by Bill Bryson, but especially “At Home” and “One Summer: America, 1927”. Both are brilliant.
“John Adams” by David McCullough. Possibly the best historical bio ever.
“The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes. The best recounting of the founding of Los Alamos.
“Hackers” by Steven Levy. The best book on the birth of creatine coding.
“The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. The best tale of hardware design I know.
“Masters of Doom” by David Kushner. The best book on the early days of gaming, esp. about Carmack and Romero.
Anything by Eric Raymond, esp. “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#83Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz[1] was the funniest programming book I ever read. I must give credit to this book if I enjoyed so much programming perl
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#84Julia Evans' comics, zines and blog posts are absolutely brilliant. Accessible, educational and full of personality. https://jvns.ca/
Yes, these are amazing. I just got a physical copy of her DNS zine and it taught me a whole bunch, despite having more than a decade's experience of mucking around with DNS at this point: https://jvns.ca/blog/2022/04/26/new-zine--how-dns-works-/
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#85Anything by Bill Bryson, but especially “At Home” and “One Summer: America, 1927”. Both are brilliant. “John Adams” by David McCullough. Possibly the best historical bio ever. “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes. The best recounting of the founding of Los Alamos. “Hackers” by Steven Levy. The best book on the birth of creatine coding. “The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. The best tale of hardwar…
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Bill Bryson’s work is “technical writing” as commonly understood. Still worth reading, however, I’m sure.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#86This may not be what your looking for but I really like CASIO product manuals. They are concise, yet provide all the information needed. You can download them for free for any of their products from their website.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#87Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz[1] was the funniest programming book I ever read. I must give credit to this book if I enjoyed so much programming perl [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Perl
Programming Perl was also pretty masterly.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#88It’s a stretch but I’d say a lot of modern analytical philosophy could be considered “technical” in the sense that the convention is to articulate ideas and arguments as clearly and precisely as possible.
My recommendations would be Hilary Putnam, Nelson Goodman, and W.V.O Quine.
A paper I’m currently reading, which was seminal in phenomenology, is “ The Phenomenology of Cognition: Or What Is It Like to Think That P?”[1] by David Pitt. Really nice example of a well-formed thesis.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#89It’s a stretch but I’d say a lot of modern analytical philosophy could be considered “technical” in the sense that the convention is to articulate ideas and arguments as clearly and precisely as possible. My recommendations would be Hilary Putnam, Nelson Goodman, and W.V.O Quine. A paper I’m currently reading, which was seminal in phenomenology, is “ The Phenomenology of Cognition: Or What Is It Like to Think That P?…
Flippin' eck, I've just tried reading the opening sentence:
> A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there’s something it’s like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it’s like consciously to think that q.
I've re-read it umpteen times and by brain still refuses to parse it. This is not, IMHO, articulating anything clearly or precisely.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?
#90It’s a stretch but I’d say a lot of modern analytical philosophy could be considered “technical” in the sense that the convention is to articulate ideas and arguments as clearly and precisely as possible. My recommendations would be Hilary Putnam, Nelson Goodman, and W.V.O Quine. A paper I’m currently reading, which was seminal in phenomenology, is “ The Phenomenology of Cognition: Or What Is It Like to Think That P?…
My example of a modern philosopher who writes wonderfully clearly would be David Lewis.