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Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#31

Post by Pamar »

vram22 wrote: post #29

More about programming than computer science, but it does talk a lot about and show some custom algorithms (it's more about programming-in-the-small, though it does talk about some big picture too), also it is old and out of print (last I checked), but I thought it was really good when I bought and read it, so mentioning it: Writing Efficient Programs Also has a great bunch of "war stories" about performance tuning i…

Despite its age, I think it is still very worthwhile, just like Programming Pearls.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#32

Post by richtersand »

johnbender wrote: post #22

Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists Note, you have to be willing to put the time in, especially if your linear algebra is rusty or (like me) you have only a passing familiarity with complex numbers. With that in mind, it's almost entirely self-contained and you can immediately start to make connections with classical computing if you're familiar with automata. I've been interested in learning about quantum comp…

John Bender!!! :-P

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#33

Post by spacehacker »

jackyinger wrote: post #4

A New Science - Wolfram Maybe stretching outside the typical, but I have a weakness for cellular automata. Also, I've vowed never to buy another Oriely book or similar book ever. Online docs are free and stay up to date.

It is also available online for free: http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#34

Post by jagger27 »

Like others in this thread, this is more (only, in fact) about programming but I found The Go Programming Language to be an absolutely perfect introduction to Go with fantastic examples and succinct prose. It's beautifully typeset as well, which doesn't hurt.

http://www.gopl.io ISBN: 978-0134190440

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#35

Post by dgquintas »

vram22 wrote: post #29

More about programming than computer science, but it does talk a lot about and show some custom algorithms (it's more about programming-in-the-small, though it does talk about some big picture too), also it is old and out of print (last I checked), but I thought it was really good when I bought and read it, so mentioning it: Writing Efficient Programs Also has a great bunch of "war stories" about performance tuning i…

It seems an earlier related draft (s/Programs/Code) is available at http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3435&c...

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#36

Post by apenney »

ZephyrP wrote: post #23
cygned wrote: post #12

"Structure and interpretation of computer programs" Definitely recommended.

I finished it up a few months ago and I cannot recommend it enough. The real soul of SICP is in it's exercises however. It asks you to build on your own prior work in inventive ways, challenging you to solve the exercises correctly, but also to do so in a maintainable way. I wrote up some supplementary material to make the experience smoother for a practicing programmer: High-level requirements of the chapter subproj…

The one thing I really wish I had was a comprehensive test suite for all the exercises. They are (obviously) hard to solve and there's no other way to see if you were right but to check the solution. It's a huge flaw in most CS books, feedback without hand feeding you the answers.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?

#37

Post by tpetricek »

A Science of Operations by Mark Priestley (http://www.springer.com/gb/book/9781848825543)

This is cheating a bit, because the book is history of computer science rather than computer science, but I think anyone interested in programming should read it. We often think about history of computing (and what it teaches us) in a retrospective way (we see all the amazing totally revolutionary things that happened), but it turns out that if you look deeper, there is often a lot more continuity behind key ideas (and we just think it was a revolution, because we only know a little about the actual history). This book goes into detail for a number of major developments in (early) programming and it makes you think about possible alternatives. It was one of the books that inspired me to write this essay: http://tomasp.net/blog/2016/thinking-unthinkable/

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