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Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#281

Post by james_s_tayler »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #121
pjmorris wrote: post #98

I hilariously overestimate the number of books I can get through when I make these lists, but my current list for 2020 is as follows: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution Book of Proof Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems Seeing Like a State: How Certa…

My father had a stroke a couple years ago. Read "The Brain That Changes Itself" to get a feel for what might or might not be possible. Good stuff. Had practical insights for me as well. Definitely bump it up your priority list.

That book is freaky. In a really, really good way. I loved first chapter where the lady who can't balance has her brain rewired to map alternative signals as input into the balancing process.

Also the chapter on pain. Fascinating.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#282

Post by james_s_tayler »

douglaswlance wrote: post #73

My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan Design Patterns - Gang of Four Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl…

You'd probably really Technology Strategy Patterns.

That book is seriously underated.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#283

Post by rramadass »

puszczyk wrote: post #3

I look forward to read “Meditations”[1] by Marcus Aurelius and re-read “Black Swan”[2]. On the _craftsperson_ front I’ve heard good things about “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”[3] by Martin Kleppman. Also hope to get some good recommendations here :) [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&f... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac... [3]: https://www.goodre…

Get a few different translations of "Meditations". I recommend the ones by Gregory Hays, Martin Hammond and Robin Hard. The book is basically a collection of thoughts on various aspects of cultivating one's character and developing a "stoic" approach to whatever life may throw at you. It has no overarching framework/grand theory and thus you can read the individual thoughts in random order as the mood strikes you. It is quite practical and needs to be practiced in everyday life (with some commonsense changes to adapt to current time period).

You might also want to look into the works of Epictetus, Seneca and Cicero.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#284

Post by jesterson »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #132
douglaswlance wrote: post #73

My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan Design Patterns - Gang of Four Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl…

> Principles - Ray Dalio I'm confused by the praise for this book. I couldn't finish it. No real insight or anything technical, just fluff (Dreams + Reality + Determination = Success!). I'm with Josh Wolfe [1]; I think Bridgewater is going to be exposed as one of the random, large hedge funds that got lucky for a spell, but is not any better than an index fund, ex-fees. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723…

I thought I am the only one here. Managed to finish it (unfortunately) but it was completely wasted time.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#285

Post by rramadass »

lumannnn wrote: post #144

- Nassim Taleb's Incerto Box Set: - Antifragile (already started) - The Black Swan - Skin In The Game - (there are 2 more books which I've already read) - The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith - Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman - Reread: E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber

Ah, a fellow NNT fan!

I am curious; what is your opinion of his works and the man himself? I had read (a long time ago) "Fooled by Randomness" and "The Black Swan" and the thing i remember most is his definitions of Extremistan/Mediocristan (from the latter book) and our inability to understand "random chance" leading to a tendency to see patterns and devise explanations where there are none (eg. Causation vs. Correlation vs. Randomness) I find his writings thought-provoking but difficult to understand (eg. Differences between Randomness, Uncertainty, Probability and Risk) and sometimes quite nihilistic.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#286

Post by james_s_tayler »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #224
criddell wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree because people often don't have the luxury of working on greenfield projects. When you are working with an old codebase, you are going to run across design patterns. You will see terms like factory, builder, observer, decorator, pool, flyweight, etc... and it's going to be helpful to know what those are. A lot of the value of design patterns was in the terminology.

Times have changed where few non-greenfield projects use these patterns as well. Languages like Go and javascript will rarely have these patterns. I would avoid depending on the programming language. If you are working with Java or C++ these are the two languages where these patterns will appear, even in greenfield projects due to developer loyalty. If you are working with languages other than this, then you are more…

What has replaced them?

Presumably some of the problems they intend to solve still exist.

Is there some resource you can point to that says in the past when faced with situation X developers tended to use pattern Y, these days that has been superseded with way of doing things Z?

I've seen some of those patterns leveraged to great effect in modern software. But genuinely curious about alternative ways to solve the same problems.

I've definitely noticed the trend towards more and more functional programming these days. I doubt it's simply a case of "just use FP and there are no more problems".

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#287

Post by james_s_tayler »

puszczyk wrote: post #3

I look forward to read “Meditations”[1] by Marcus Aurelius and re-read “Black Swan”[2]. On the _craftsperson_ front I’ve heard good things about “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”[3] by Martin Kleppman. Also hope to get some good recommendations here :) [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&f... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac... [3]: https://www.goodre…

Meditations has some cool phrases here and there. It mostly gets very repetitive and you figure out his philosophy pretty clearly early on because he restates the same idea in hundreds of different ways. It's largely the same idea though.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#288

Post by Delfino »

sriacha wrote: post #189
Delfino wrote: post #175

I read about 25 books this year, here are the top 10 I look forward to reading in 2020, many of them informed by my favorites of 2019: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - I read Sapiens this year and really enjoyed it. I just started this today one so I may finish that before the end of the year. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - I like books that make me think and from what I've heard, this will definitely d…

As a contrast to 'The Language Instinct' I would highly recommend 'Don't Sleep There are Snakes' by linguist Daniel Everett, which follows his time living with a remote tribe in the Amazon and learning their language. A very nice introduction of the idea of recursion in linguistics, and a rebuttal of the old dogma that there is in fact such a thing as a language instinct.

Thanks for the recommendation. Definitely enjoy hearing multiple perspectives when learning about a new (to me) field.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#290

Post by gadders »

Balgair wrote: post #146

USMC Commandant's 2020 Reading List. This year I am finishing up the Harvard Classics and am looking for a new view point. https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1 Unfortunately, the military only publish on New Years Day (traditionally as a sort of holiday gift to those under command), so the 2020 list is not out yet. Every title is free via either the base library or the Navy Digital Library. Most ha…

They should add House to House by David Bellavia. Excellent book and as it's written in the present tense you feel like you are right there with him.
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