Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 28, 2010, 7:16 AM UTC

silentbicycle wrote: post #135

binomial wrote: post #132

Reposting a dead post which should not have been dead, from abecedarius: These had high I-want-to-read-itosity, I thought: Abelson and diSessa, Turtle Geometry Abelson and Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Aho and Weinberger and Kernighan, The AWK Programming Language Andrew Appel, Compiling With Continuations Jon Bentley, More Programming Pearls Jon Bentley, Programming Pearls Leo Brodie, Th…

Why is Darius Bacon's account dead? I just flipped showdead back on to check, and it's his first dead comment. Seriously, WTF? Skipping stuff commented on elsewhere: While _The New Turing Omnibus_ is probably nothing too surprising to people here (at least not the subset that also hangs out on LtU, etc.), it's got a lot of approachable 2-5 page summaries of many major topics in CS. _The Craft of Prolog_ is quite good…

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Nov 28, 2010, 7:21 AM UTC

drallison wrote: post #133

l0nwlf wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find most programming books to be boring and discursive. I was of the same opinion until I read "Programming Pearls" by Jon bentley. The way it opens up a problem statement, thereby making you think is truly fascinating. If you haven't read it, please do.

Jon Bentley's books are outstanding but don't fall into the quick read category in my opinion. They are complex and need careful study (and working the exercises) to get all you can from them. His 1982 book, Writing Efficient Programs , and the 1981 precursor, Writing Efficient Code , ought to be read by every C programmer. Sadly, they are now out of print and hard to find. Writing Efficient Programs is a breezy tour…

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Nov 28, 2010, 7:27 AM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #45

Most influential programming book - question answered on stackoverflow with some great answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m... Not directly related, but here's a huge list of freely available programming books: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava...

Post by mhartl » Sun, Nov 28, 2010, 6:57 PM UTC

silentbicycle wrote: post #7

_The Little Schemer_, _The Seasoned Schemer_, _The Little MLer_. Those are made to be burned through, though. Probably not one sitting (many ideas need time to sink in), but only a couple sessions each. More recently, _Land of Lisp_. I already knew much of the material, but a very fun read. (Nice stickers, too!) I'd suggest this as a starting point for people new to Lisp, maybe even before _The Little Schemer_ (!). I…

Post by ljordan » Sun, Nov 28, 2010, 11:35 PM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #102

Think Python. http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html Can't overstate its usefulness to me. Programming was hard, Think Python made it easy.