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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?

#141

Post by reckoner2 »

simon_acca wrote: post #117

Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Scott Aaronson. A brilliant MIT professor's reflections on the intersection between computer science, physics and philosophy. Here are the lecture notes and book: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/ I also very much recommend the author's blog: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/

This would be my recommendation as well. It is closer to a textbook, than say a popular science book, but is still a very fun, engaging, and at times pretty funny read.

Similarly to books like GEB, it really exposed me to a whole range of fascinating ideas and topics that I am now interested in.

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

#142

Post by abglassman »

aduffy wrote: post #20

The Algorithm Design Manual by Skiena. Each section contains a story of some situation he was in where he faced a problem which he solved by applying one of various algo techniques (DP, divide and conquer, etc.). After reading CLRS for a class, it was nice to see how some of the most common textbook algorithms have been applied by a notable computer scientist.

I love this book for how approachable, readable, and even enjoyable it is. Skiena does a great job of motivating each of the algorithmic techniques. I recommend this one widely.

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

#143

Post by bogomipz »

simon_acca wrote: post #117

Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Scott Aaronson. A brilliant MIT professor's reflections on the intersection between computer science, physics and philosophy. Here are the lecture notes and book: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/ I also very much recommend the author's blog: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/

I second this, although I am not finished with it, I can say it is a very interesting read. Thanks for the link to the author's site which has lecture notes, I didn't know this existed. The lecture notes are easy going an have a good sense of humor, such as the following:

"It's a shame that, after proving his Completeness Theorem, Gödel never really did anything else of note. [Pause for comic effect] "

Cheers.

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

#145

Post by rcavezza »

ardivekar wrote: post #144

I really like Introduction To Statistical Learning with Applications in R, by Daniela Witten, Gareth James, Robert Tibshirani, and Trevor Hastie. It's the easiest book I've found to get into machine learning without any formal statistics training.

And it's free online http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20First%20Printing.p...

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

#147

Post by amai »

aduffy wrote: post #20

The Algorithm Design Manual by Skiena. Each section contains a story of some situation he was in where he faced a problem which he solved by applying one of various algo techniques (DP, divide and conquer, etc.). After reading CLRS for a class, it was nice to see how some of the most common textbook algorithms have been applied by a notable computer scientist.

This book is highly overrated. Algorithms by Sedgewick (http://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/) is a much better book for learning and understanding algorithms. Skienas book is a simple collection of (sometimes very exotic) algorithms. It won't teach you anything, it will only tell you what exists.

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

#149

Post by denzil_correa »

amai wrote: post #147
aduffy wrote: post #20

The Algorithm Design Manual by Skiena. Each section contains a story of some situation he was in where he faced a problem which he solved by applying one of various algo techniques (DP, divide and conquer, etc.). After reading CLRS for a class, it was nice to see how some of the most common textbook algorithms have been applied by a notable computer scientist.

This book is highly overrated. Algorithms by Sedgewick ( http://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/ ) is a much better book for learning and understanding algorithms. Skienas book is a simple collection of (sometimes very exotic) algorithms. It won't teach you anything, it will only tell you what exists.

> Skienas book is a simple collection of (sometimes very exotic) algorithms

It has the same material as Sedgewick, doesn't it?

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

#150

Post by olau »

johntran wrote: post #75

The Mythical Man-Month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month It was written 40 years ago, but it is still relevant to today. Its so important to think about how to build effective engineering teams.

If you read that and like it, try The Design of Design by Fred Brooks, in which he talks about on a high level how the design process works; good teachings about the flaws of the waterfall model.
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