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Secret Hacker Bookshelf
21–30 of 56 posts
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#22Nice list. I wouldn't expect to see SICP, The Little Schemer, and CLSR next to Head First HTML, however. Certainly, the former are a bit more timeless.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#23I'm a bit surprised at not finding any Seth Godin books. Do you, personally and as a 'hacker community' not find his books useful? I always felt like they taught me more about marketing than any other books I'd read on the subject. Is there something I'm missing in reference to Godin's books?
I was a big fan of Seth Godin's blog and books until a few years ago. Now I don't read any of those. Seth Godin books are good when you starting to read those kinds of books. His blog can inspire a lot when you are new to his style, but after some time you realize that many of the articles in the blog (or the books) do not teach you anything new. They are just rehash of the same ideas over and over. YMMV, but I have…
I completely agree with you. In the beginning, when I was confused whether I had to stick to the illusory safety or to do my own thing and create value. Listening to Seth Godin's audio books and some of his interviews had definitely helped. Sometimes, people need that kind of motivation and reassurance to get started though they will realize sooner or later. Now, I don't see the point in reading his books and I have removed his blog from the feeds probably for the same reason as yours.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#24I think overall it is a good list, one I take issue with is "Head First HTML" I don't know if it is fixed now, but about a year ago, I tried to teach someone using that book as a manual and the first chapter was incomplete, It literally was missing the text so the individual could not continue without me. Which defeated the point of buying a book so that they could do projects and learn while I was not around. For mo…
From personal experience, "HTML Dog" is a better book than "Head First HTML". The list is good but if it's targeted toward people not already familiar with the tooling, some hand holding is required.
For example, "HTML Dog" and "CSS Mastery" may be placed together. As already suggested on his blog, parallel path recommendations would be good viz. Python using "Think python", Ruby using "Learn to program", Scheme using SICP .. and pointing out that if your aim is to learn to program, you can pick any of them.
But heck, it would be too much work for the poster.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#25Is HN really the new place for book spamming aa links? Which books don't matter. Half those are outdated or will be by the time they're read.
You know you should really take a look at who posted the article and who wrote the article, jacquesm and Daniel are some of our most respected and informational members that we have. Both have contributed volumes of information to this site without asking for anything in return. If there is anyone one this site that could be accused of having the passion for the subject matter of this site it would be Daniel. As is s…
As well you don't lose anything by giving someone an affiliate sale, so unless your getting tricked into clicking someones links I think people can tend to make a bigger deal of it than is needed.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#26That's an interesting list of books, thanks for the submission.
How did you collate the lists?
Where did you get the books from? (e.g. HN, other sources?)
It's interesting to see what's not on there as much as what is. I would've considered the javascript books not nearly as important as Stephens' TCP/IP Illustrated, or Tanenbaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation, but then again how much use would they be in this modern age (for the majority of use cases)?
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#27I'm surprised that The Pragmatic Programmer isn't on there. Am I that much out of date that this book is no longer recommended? It completely changed the way I thought of development at the time.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was a big fan of Seth Godin's blog and books until a few years ago. Now I don't read any of those. Seth Godin books are good when you starting to read those kinds of books. His blog can inspire a lot when you are new to his style, but after some time you realize that many of the articles in the blog (or the books) do not teach you anything new. They are just rehash of the same ideas over and over. YMMV, but I have…
I completely agree with you. In the beginning, when I was confused whether I had to stick to the illusory safety or to do my own thing and create value. Listening to Seth Godin's audio books and some of his interviews had definitely helped. Sometimes, people need that kind of motivation and reassurance to get started though they will realize sooner or later. Now, I don't see the point in reading his books and I have…
Seth Godins books are like the training wheel equivalent of marketing. But no matter what, you will always find at least something in there that might change your perspective, I've yet to see any book that I didn't learn something from.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#29This is a good list, but if you're a startup founder you generally only need to know 1% of each of these books. Don't buy them all. If you had to choose 3 books from that list, what would they be?
(Caveat: As a hacker with an interest/need to learn marketing) 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - just the best overview for how to get out there (in the words of Steve Jobs, "it's a noisy world, the best you can ever hope or ask for is that just one single idea about what you do can be remembered"). Also might as well throw Positioning in there as its compliment. Made to Stick - how to encapsulate a single idea, and h…
Love Made to Stick and Founders at Work. I haven't read 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, but I'll check it out, thanks.
One excellent marketing book I recently read is Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon (no ref link: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...). She believes that going tit-for-tat on adding features and augmentations is a losing game that results in every competitor looking like one another. Instead, you should find your strength, and focus on that while resisting to focus on where your product falls short. The book is also very... poetic. She's quite a quotable writer. Good stuff.
Re: Secret Hacker Bookshelf
#30I think that Effective Java by Josh Bloch deserves to be added to this list.
If I were to recommend only one Java book, it would be this one. Definitely deserves to be on the list.