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Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

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Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#51

Shameless plug: I've recently released an open source, online, interactive[1], little-prerequisite, plain language, introductory Computer Graphics textbook here: http://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch [1] Live demos with more interaction coming very soon!

You actually have a lot of really interesting stuff on your site. The Client-Server Game Architecture and Pathfinding Demystified articles also both look like really good reads. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your kind words :)

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#52

I found Clean Architecture to be a big disappointment. I specifically waited for its release to read all of his architecture-related advice in one volume, and then found that most of the meat was in figures and diagrams which I couldn't follow because of my visual impairment. I realise that's not entirely Uncle Bob's problem, but all the way through the book I was telling myself that it would be worth it once I reach…

Are you able to read braille? Are these diagrams translateable on that fashion?

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#53
post #5

Type-Driven Development with Idris: https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven-development-with-i...

This looks like a nice book but I'm wondering if the overhead of learning Idris on top of Coq (which I'm familiar with) would have any benefits - would you say it's different enough from Software Foundations?

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#54

As a side-comment, don't limit yourself to recently released programming books! I used to do that when reading about web stuff, since most older texts were outdated. But there's many topics for which older books are far better sources of information! The 80s and 90s had tons of improvements and innovations which are still highly relevant. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that something is better just because it's…

+1 for Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I worked my way into the hadoop ecosystem a few years ago and read dozens of books before I started seeing the big picture of databases, data processing and distributed systems. This book gives the same grounding in a single read, it’s an instant classic.

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#55

I've been enjoying the in-progress "Crafting Interpreters" by Bob Nystrom: http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html

I found "Writing an Interpreter in Go" to be a much better read. It was actually completely portable to C++ and Rust, and that made it useful to pretty much anyone.

Presumably: https://interpreterbook.com/ is what you mean?

(Also: I'm following along with "crafting interpreters" and not writing my interpreter in java, have had no troubles)

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#57
post #5

Type-Driven Development with Idris: https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven-development-with-i...

This looks like a nice book but I'm wondering if the overhead of learning Idris on top of Coq (which I'm familiar with) would have any benefits - would you say it's different enough from Software Foundations?

I haven't gone through SF yet, but I believe TDDwI and SF have very different goals. TDDwI is about hands-on development with a particular language, whereas SF uses Coq to investigate and formally verify broad theoretical topics, right?

TDDwI is also my pick for the year. It's really well done.

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#58
post #21

My highlight was Yegor Bugayenko's "Elegant Objects". Volume 2 was released this year (however I found the first Volume (2016) much better). Yegor describes what went wrong with object-oriented programming. Whether you are stuck with Java or broaden your horizon, I can really recommend this book series, as it shows nicely how to deal with object-oriented code in the right way. What was eyeopening for me was that code…

Lately I've read blogpost about DAO posted on HN written by author. I also have read handful of his blogposts like rant on MVC not beeing OOP. Author simplified SOLID in a way that it looks like he is not correct in post about SOLID. Like he tries to bash Bob Martin and Martin Fowler to look cool. Strikes me as not really practical. Maybe even that he only tries to look like he knows what he is writing about.

Re: Ask HN: CS and programming books of 2017

#59

Technically Wrong by Sara Wachter-Boettcher A really interesting dive into looking at common apps and industry problems from alternate perspectives, as well as how bias affects technical and design decisions in software. Not super technical per se, but it's pretty short and raises great and timely questions. https://www.amazon.com/Technically-Wrong-Sexist-Algorithms-T...

I loved that book too. What I especially liked is it wasn't just theory and rhetoric. There were specific examples of things that went wrong, backed with statistics on why it went wrong, and actionable ideas for how to fix things.
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