Books I Recommend • Hacker News Board

Re: Books I Recommend

#21

Post by lbacaj » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

I read/listen to a lot of books and the only book on there I’ve read so far is The Managers Path, which is about the transition of the software engineer in his/her career. It’s a great book for any software engineer, it’s short too.

Given that I haven’t heard of many of the other books on the list, I’d say this is a good list I’ll be checking out a few of the titles.

One trick about “reading” (listening) to a good chunk of books has been Audible, to retain the content I’m listening to on my commutes and on the go I take a lot of notes.

As a little self promotion I created a cross platform App that lets you listen to any Article from the web by using great sounding AI/ML to convert the text to audio. I built it recently because I feel really strongly that Audio is a great way to learn and maximize that dead on the go time rather than waste it.

If you’d like to check my app out it’s here:

https://articulu.com

Re: Books I Recommend

#22

Post by kojackst » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

tugberkk wrote: post #11

I would be glad if there was a little information about the author of the blog. I do not know who jess fraz is, why would I bother to see his/her recommendations? It would be pretty nice for posters to put some additional information about the topic rather than just posting a link.

What I know about her is that she was a member of the Docker team and now works for Microsoft. She seems like a good professional and is popular among those who are into twitter, blogging and events, but I don't know if there's anything particular remarkable about her (if you are thinking about celebrities such as Ritchie, Linus, Stallman and others).

Re: Books I Recommend

#23

Post by mbrudd » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

jeff76 wrote: post #10

mesaframe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen book authors talking about solutions to their book. And the two most talked about reasons are 1. Morale Stuff 2. If they provide their solutions online then the Book will not get adapted by professors.

I understand but sometimes there are books targeted for the “self-learner” that provide 0 solutions and are the type of books that save off major theorems to be proven in the exercises. That’s completely fine. Don’t advertise the books for self-learners or “programmers”. I would like to see actual books targeted at these demographics that provide solutions and aren’t concerned about being adapted in a classroom. Ther…

There ought to be (and probably are!) analogues of StackExchange or MathOverflow where people can post and discuss solutions for problems in specific books. Would be interesting to know about existing options.

Re: Books I Recommend

#24

Post by quaice » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #18

readittwice wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because she is famous (over 100K followers on twitter) ;) On a more serious note: Because there are some books in this list that at least I've never heard about but sound interesting.

Twitter may be open to all, but it is not representative of the general demographic, even in this industry. In the grand scheme of things, Twitter fame means little.

I honestly can't even imagine a personality that takes in to account an individuals number of followers when assessing their relevancy. I just can't grok that.

Re: Books I Recommend

#25

Post by ChristianGeek » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

metaphor wrote: post #16

sefrost wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This website has a list of books talked about on HN: https://hackernewsbooks.com

Another functional equivalent: https://toptalkedbooks.com/hackernews

This one also lets you look at Stack Overflow and Reddit mentions.

Re: Books I Recommend

#26

Post by jeff76 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

cttet wrote: post #20

jeff76 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why people recommend books like “a programmers introduction to mathematics”. They’re advertised as books for “programmers” or people that know little math, yet they hide solutions from the reader. The reader that doesn’t know proper proofs or deep mathematics likely isn’t the same ones that know if their solutions are correct. Programmers like to write code with test cases. We don’t like to write c…

Mathematics is a very broad topic. Which part are you interested in?

Any books in: Introduction to proofs, Abstract algebra, Topology, Linear algebra

Re: Books I Recommend

#27

Post by Buttons840 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

jeff76 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why people recommend books like “a programmers introduction to mathematics”. They’re advertised as books for “programmers” or people that know little math, yet they hide solutions from the reader. The reader that doesn’t know proper proofs or deep mathematics likely isn’t the same ones that know if their solutions are correct. Programmers like to write code with test cases. We don’t like to write c…

I recognize math as a source of useful ideas. I want a high level overview of what math can do, so that I may draw ideas and solutions from it as needed. I find that many proofs are intuitive, although I can't prove them myself; that's OK, I am happy with my fuzzy and fallible intuition here, and it serves me well enough. This is not unlike mathmeticians who often suspect something is true before proving it.

Test cases are not proofs. I don't want to write mathematics, I want to write code and maybe draw some fuzzy and fallible human inspiration from mathematics.

Re: Books I Recommend

#28

Post by siddharthgoel88 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

lbacaj wrote: post #21

I read/listen to a lot of books and the only book on there I’ve read so far is The Managers Path, which is about the transition of the software engineer in his/her career. It’s a great book for any software engineer, it’s short too. Given that I haven’t heard of many of the other books on the list, I’d say this is a good list I’ll be checking out a few of the titles. One trick about “reading” (listening) to a good ch…

Thanks for sharing your insight. I am not able to access your app in my country. Do you have some country restriction to it?

Re: Books I Recommend

#29

Post by codemusings » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

kojackst wrote: post #22

tugberkk wrote: post #11

I would be glad if there was a little information about the author of the blog. I do not know who jess fraz is, why would I bother to see his/her recommendations? It would be pretty nice for posters to put some additional information about the topic rather than just posting a link.

What I know about her is that she was a member of the Docker team and now works for Microsoft. She seems like a good professional and is popular among those who are into twitter, blogging and events, but I don't know if there's anything particular remarkable about her (if you are thinking about celebrities such as Ritchie, Linus, Stallman and others).

According to her Twitter that gig at Microsoft already ended.

Re: Books I Recommend

#30

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #27

jeff76 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why people recommend books like “a programmers introduction to mathematics”. They’re advertised as books for “programmers” or people that know little math, yet they hide solutions from the reader. The reader that doesn’t know proper proofs or deep mathematics likely isn’t the same ones that know if their solutions are correct. Programmers like to write code with test cases. We don’t like to write c…

I recognize math as a source of useful ideas. I want a high level overview of what math can do, so that I may draw ideas and solutions from it as needed. I find that many proofs are intuitive, although I can't prove them myself; that's OK, I am happy with my fuzzy and fallible intuition here, and it serves me well enough. This is not unlike mathmeticians who often suspect something is true before proving it. Test cas…

[deleted]