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Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#61

Post by powerset »

frogpelt wrote: post #52
carapace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping someone else remembers it and furnishes the title. I was a kid when I read it, and the book was already old, so publication date circa 1970-80. Best I can do. I trawled through book cover images but no love. - - - - edit to add: It's probably "Auto Mechanics Fundamentals" by Stockel. I'm still looking for pictures of the insides of the book, but going by what I can see here, it's very likely: https://archi…

How Cars Work by Tom Newton OR Auto Mechanics Fundamentals by Martin T. Stockel Maybe?

I just previewed a few pages from "How Cars Work", and it listed this 'money saving tip' that I found pretty funny: "Don't ... make eye contact with police officers while driving"

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#62

Post by whatitdobooboo »

frogpelt wrote: post #52
carapace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping someone else remembers it and furnishes the title. I was a kid when I read it, and the book was already old, so publication date circa 1970-80. Best I can do. I trawled through book cover images but no love. - - - - edit to add: It's probably "Auto Mechanics Fundamentals" by Stockel. I'm still looking for pictures of the insides of the book, but going by what I can see here, it's very likely: https://archi…

How Cars Work by Tom Newton OR Auto Mechanics Fundamentals by Martin T. Stockel Maybe?

Just going by description and the "red book" it seems like its Auto Mechanics Fundamentals:

>>> "It is the aim of Auto Mechanics Fundamentals to provide a thorough understanding of the design, construction and operation of automotive units. Each unit is approached by starting with basic theory, then parts are added until the unit is complete. By following this procedure, the function of each unit is explained, and its relationship to the complete car is made clear. Hundreds of illustrations were drawn especially for this text. Important areas are featured in these drawings, and many are exaggerated to place emphasis on parts being discussed. Unfamiliar words are defined immediately following the words. In addition, the Dictionary of Terms in the back of the book defines more than 1,100 terms..."

https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Fundamentals-Construction-O...

(This one is blue but there is another version in red)

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#64

Post by harrisonjackson »

Ray Wenderlich books on mobile development. His site started as basic tutorials for iOS dev and has grown to cover other mobile development, unity, server-side swift and more. It is all project-based. The books are great and the website has a lot of good free content.

https://store.raywenderlich.com/

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#65

Post by ninjakeyboard »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #58
carapace wrote: post #17

Not quite what you're talking about but the best book on car mechanics I ever read... It was red, and textbook-sized, hardcover. Lots of drawings. It literally started with an explosion in a can, and then progressively enhanced that idea step-by-step: add a lid to the can to capture the energy, add a lever to keep the can lid from flying away, and then attach the lever to a wheel so that it returns the lid to the top…

Commenting to save this one.

+1 - I want to come back to this thread and read things.

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#66

Post by larrywright »

I know you specifically asked for books, but I think these are too good to not mention.

Ben Eater has a series of Youtube videos that explores how computers work, starting from first principles, and in the process you build an 8 bit computer (or a 6502 computer in a different series). He actually sells kits of the parts to build it yourself, or you can buy the parts yourself.

It’s a deep dive into how computers work, but it’s very approachable. He’s an excellent teacher, and the video format works really well for what he’s teaching - it’s hard to imagine this working as well in book form.

Build an 8-bit computer from scratch: https://eater.net/8bit Build a 6502 computer: https://eater.net/6502 Let’s build a video card: https://eater.net/vga

I’ve watched a bunch of these videos in the past few weeks and I’ve learned so much from them. I can’t recommend them enough.

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#69

Post by blowski »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #58
carapace wrote: post #17

Not quite what you're talking about but the best book on car mechanics I ever read... It was red, and textbook-sized, hardcover. Lots of drawings. It literally started with an explosion in a can, and then progressively enhanced that idea step-by-step: add a lid to the can to capture the energy, add a lever to keep the can lid from flying away, and then attach the lever to a wheel so that it returns the lid to the top…

Commenting to save this one.

If you want to save for the future, you can just "favourite" the comment. If you don't see the favourite link, click on the timestamp to see the comment in its own page, and it should be there. You can also favourite the whole thread.

Re: Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?

#70

Post by d4nyll »

pknopf wrote: post #30
jlelonm wrote: post #29

VERY interested in "Building Enterprise JavaScript Applications" I noticed that it was released Sept 2018. That's not too old, but I'm curious if there's a more up-to-date version.

That's a funny joke. But really, I'm sure it's outdated. There really shouldn't be any JS books in print...

Hello! Author here! The book introduces a lot of tools (~20) and these tools are bound to get out of date eventually. As a matter of fact, the Babel libraries moved from v6 to v7 during the writing process, and I've had to painstakingly rewrite most of the book to keep itself updated.

But the core value of the book is not in the tools themselves, but the concepts and principles of these tools, and how these tools work with each other. And these don't get outdated as easily!

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