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Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#201

Post by dragontamer »

* Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming"

* Jon Kleinberg, Eva Tardos's "Algorithm Design".

* Paul Horowitz's "The Art of Electronics"

* Agner Fog's "Microarchitecture of Intel, AMD, and VIA CPUs": https://www.agner.org/optimize/microarchitecture.pdf

Not a big list, and I've got a lot of textbooks. Knuth's writing style is difficult, its the hardest read I've ever had. But Knuth hits you with the hardest examples as soon as possible, making it very "efficient" reading.

Algorithm Design is clear, concise, and practical.

Art of Electronics is one of the few books that realizes that actual chips and actual specifications are important to electronics designs. It has the unfortunate effect of going obsolete as new chips come out, but its one of the few books that digs into specification sheets and tells you what's important and how to read them.

Agner Fog's microarchitecture was more specific, up-to-date, and understandable if you read it from beginning to end. Agner Fog has a little trick: he starts with the Intel Pentium, and then describes how features were added every generation. (Branch Predicction, Pipelines, out of order, etc. etc)

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#202

Post by kendallpark »

Robbins & Cotran pathology books. There are three versions of the same text textbook ranging from a massive, detailed tome to pocket reference book. We refer to them as "big-," "medium-," and "little-Robbins." I have all three, but "medium Robbins" is my favorite.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#203

Post by omnimus »

sbuk wrote: post #140
henryoz wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more re: Norman's book. I wish it had been recommended to me as a linguistics undergrad. He provides such a clear explanation as to how design is a way of solving communication problems over making things look good. I also run into "Norman doors" at least once a week and always smile when I remember the term.

It's one of the principles that has stuck with me throughout my professional life; design is solving problems, not solving aesthetics.

But don't be completely in denial of aesthetics. Looking good often helps function a lot.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#204

Post by vinayms »

kamaal wrote: post #121
vinayms wrote: post #108

(The title of the post must be changed to something more neutral because by answering the poster self declares that they are an expert, which not only seems unlikely of most people, but also makes ones such as yours truly withhold from answering due to the connotations, and requires prefaces of this kind to address their apprehensions.) Software Engineering About C++: The Design and Evolution of C++ and The C++ Progr…

>>Algorithm Design by Kleinberg and Tardos. Which other Algorithms book would you recommend?

Robert Sedgewick's Algorithms in C++ 3rd Edition.

This is the book that introduced me to the wonderful world of algorithms, and I love it. The introduction chapter was a revelation and nothing like I had read before. I didn't understand everything in the first read but it made me to want to. The book is more accessible and practical than Knuth and CLRS, and more thorough than Skiena and such. Everything about this book is beautiful, not the least of which is the visualization of sort algorithms. There is also abundant tree related topics, which is quite refreshing and useful, in hindsight, because trees, other than balanced binary ones, are generally ignored in most books where graph steals the limelight.

There are two volumes that make this book, first having Parts 1 to 4, dealing with fundamentals, DS, sort and search, and the second, Part 5, dealing exclusively with graphs. I have only the first one and the opinion is based on that. There is a newer Java version, which includes the graph topics, and is about 250 pages longer than the first volume. However, based on the preview, it seems almost first 120 pages are dedicated to the Java language and OOP, unlike the C++ version which starts directly with the subject, so not sure how much of the contents are removed to make room, and how the quality differs.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#206

Post by tptacek »

bugmen0t wrote: post #109

In Web Security: - The Tangled Web ( http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/tangled/ ) You can look at the Web Application Hacker's Handbook or the Browser Hacker's Handbook, if you want. But TTW tops them all.

Tangled and WAHH are very different books. They're not substitutes for each other. Tangled is closer to Browser Hackers.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#207

Post by vinayms »

gjm11 wrote: post #144
kamaal wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Algorithm Design by Kleinberg and Tardos. Which other Algorithms book would you recommend?

I recommend getting two . Introduction to algorithms , Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein. Rigorous, detailed, thorough. Dry, technical, intimidating. The algorithm design manual , Skiena. Friendly, informal, heuristic, insightful. Sloppy, handwavy, gappily incomplete. They fill one another's gaps very nicely. [EDITED to add:] I haven't read Kleinberg & Tardos, recommended above; it sounds like it may fill much the same n…

> The algorithm design manual, Friendly, informal, heuristic, insightful. Sloppy, handwavy, gappily incomplete.

Kleinberg and Tardos is also friendly, informal, insightful, and even heuristic to an extent, but opposite of the others, so IMO its much better and very different than Skiena's, though it isn't a quick read before an exam or an interview sort of a book, which is what Skiena's can be described as. Browse K&T to see what I mean.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#208

Post by olooney »

Some of the best textbooks in statistics and machine learning:

Applied -------

Hosmer et al., Applied Logistic Regression. An exhaustive guide to the perils and pitfalls of logistic regression. Logistic regression is the power tool of interpretable statistical models, but if you don't understand it, it will take your foot off (concretely, your inferences will be wrong and your peers will laugh at you.) This book is essential. Graduate level, or perhaps advanced undergraduate, intended for STEM and social science grad students.

https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Logistic-Regression-Probabili...

Peter Christen's Data Matching. Record Linkage is a relatively niche concept, so Christen's book has no right to be as good as it is. But it covers every relevant topic in a clear, even-handed way. If you are working on a record linkage system, then there's nothing in this book you can afford not to know. Undergraduate level, but intended for industry practitioners.

https://www.amazon.com/Data-Matching-Techniques-Data-Centric...

Max Kuhn's Applied Predictive Modeling. Even if you don't use R, this is an incredibly good introduction to how predictive modeling is done in practice. Early undergraduate level.

http://appliedpredictivemodeling.com/

Theoretical -----------

The Elements of Statistical Learning. Probably the single most respected book in machine learning. Exhaustive and essential. Advanced undergraduate level.

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Statistical-Learning-Predict...

Kevin Murphy's Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective. Covers lots of the same ground as Elements but is a little easier. Undergraduate level.

https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Probabilistic-Perspe...

Taboga's Lectures on Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics. Has the distinction of being available for free in web-friendly format at https://www.statlect.com/ . Undergraduate level for math majors.

https://www.amazon.com/Lectures-Probability-Theory-Mathemati...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

#210

Post by libertine »

davidivadavid wrote: post #174
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that these fundamental questions are elaborated upon in most contemporary textbooks. In practice, however, young entrepreneurs creating business models around apps need to deal with a whole range of both general and specific issues that need to be addressed and Kotler is of limited use here.

That would also be my criticism of Kotler and Keller. It's good to learn about the marketing lingo, but it doesn't teach you how to do something concrete at a professional level (create a marketing strategy, write persuasive copy, etc.).

Well it gives you the tools and frameworks to build your own strategy, that's why it's so great.

If you went to university to study marketing, like some of us did, strategy would be put to practice in classes dedicated to it, and all at to be supported - either by theory (like Kotler's) or by research.

Copyrighting is one tool of one of the marketing mix "P"'s - Promotion.

If you want to learn about copyrighting read Ogilvy - he was very good with communication and copy.

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