Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
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Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
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Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#2Previous discussions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1297536
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754545
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#3Cue the circus of people who argue over the contents of this list, despite having actually used the learnings from books only in job interviews.
There are so many developers (like your peers at work) who have literally read none of these books. In a Darwinian sense, isn't that evidence that there's nothing so special about these texts for what you do?
Skip the books and just memorize what's on Interview Cake. I love that site. It so brilliantly subverts the academic pretensions of every industrial software development shop.
So many people will have memorized so precisely the solutions to programming test questions that they stop being useful. Engineering managers will be unable to come up with novel questions, because they will have no benchmarks. Then the madness will end: Computer Science will get less popular in university again, and this notion that these Gospels have All the Answers will go away.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#4I do like the C++ programming language book. It has a really nice introduction in the first quarter of the content. It has good no nonsense examples.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#5Previous discussions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1297536 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754545
Wow! did not know that this surfaces time and again. I think, we need meta-post which says Posts that HackerNews readers don't really read.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#6> I've read all of these books myself, so I have no difficulty believing that many moderately competent programmers have read them as well. If you're interested enough in programming that you're reading this blog, you've probably read most, if not all of the books in this list
That is some gross arrogance on full display right there. If you're as good as me, surely you've read all these books. Any other books... flawed in ways you should be ashamed of.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#7The Gang of Four patterns book is one of those books that you should probably only read when you already have decent experience writing non trivial software.
If you do so, it will formidably crystallize knowledge you've been acquiring subconsciously. You'll have probably been having gut feelings about why certain things are wrong or clunky and others are elegant, and Design Patterns will give you a vocabulary to describe these things.
If you read it as a beginner, the subtleties of it all will go over your head, and you'll end up trying to cram design patterns everywhere without much sense or reason.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#8I'd put SICP on the better read when dead list. Fundamental Algorithms shouldn't be read anymore but at least I liked it when I read it. SICP was the text in 61A at Berkeley but there were no assigned readings from it. It was meant to be worshipped rather than read. I rather like the Dragon book but compilers have come along. The 2nd edition is an improvement.
I'd add that EE20N used a Berkeley written text, Structure and Interpretation of Systems and Signals. I was in the minority and liked that book. I still have it.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#9> If you're interested enough in programming that you're reading this blog, you've probably read most, if not all of the books in this list
oh, really?
> it's intended for the multitudes who are trying to appear smarter by pretending to have read them.
As opposed to trying to appear smarter by issuing decrees to the internet about what everyone who is "interested in programming" has read.
Re: Books Programmers Don't Really Read (2008)
#10I'd put SICP on the better read when dead list. Fundamental Algorithms shouldn't be read anymore but at least I liked it when I read it. SICP was the text in 61A at Berkeley but there were no assigned readings from it. It was meant to be worshipped rather than read. I rather like the Dragon book but compilers have come along. The 2nd edition is an improvement. I'd add that EE20N used a Berkeley written text, Structur…
I read SICP for the first time in February this year, 15 years into my programming career and 12 years after graduating from a CS department. It's a very easy and enjoyable read, even the code blocks are readable, unlike coding examples in most (all?) modern programming books. I literally loved every page of it.
There's just something special in the way material is presented in SICP, in the order of topics, in the text's tone: it remains enthralling without being difficult, it teaches without being indulgent. It absolutely is meant to be read.