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Ask HN: Book Recommendations

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11–20 of 21 posts

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#13
A Discipline of Programming by Edsger W. Dijkstra[1]. It's one of those books whose lessons most people won't use much professionally, at least not directly, but it opens a new frontier of thinking you might otherwise have never even known existed.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2276288.A_Discipline_of_...

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#14
I'm not sure how much this is a tech book, but Dawn of the New Everything by Jaron Lanier is great.

Jaron is a pioneer from the early days of VR (he started/helped start VPL Research Labs). The book is a combination memoir and thoughts on what VR is and isn't. It opened my mind as to what is possible with VR but also the dangers it poses.

Regarding the tech side, it did get me interested more in the math of computer graphics, so if anything, I would call it a gateway tech book :)

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#15
Most of the books suggested here are rather heavy for a holiday read. I suggest The Code Book by Simon Singh. A very readable introduction to Cryptography. Another one that I'd recommend is the Go Programming Language, a concise but excellent tutorial on Go. This is best used by writing programs alongside reading the book, but you can just read the excellent examples and still get a lot out of it.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#16
post #2

Some general recommendations (these are not new books): - The Phoenix Project. An easy read that is a good introduction to modern Dev Ops culture [1]. - Designing Data Intensive Applications. A technical introduction to distributed systems. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-pro... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-...

> The Phoenix Project. An easy read that is a good introduction to modern Dev Ops culture [1].

I have The DevOps Handbook next to me (also by Gene Kim) and I could not get through it. It is just a case study after case study of "what you should do to be super productive" and I found myself nodding off despite being in a highly DevOps environment at this particular moment.

Just putting it here in case someone would think, as I did, that DevOps handbook is the more modern, better version of TPP, and therefore should be read instead.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#18
post #2

Some general recommendations (these are not new books): - The Phoenix Project. An easy read that is a good introduction to modern Dev Ops culture [1]. - Designing Data Intensive Applications. A technical introduction to distributed systems. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-pro... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-...

I enjoyed the audiobook until the "rebirth" of CISO where it became too cringe. Then I dropped it for later. But I still recommend it, just for fun.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#19
If you’re looking for some sci fi, I highly recommend The Expanse series.

Thinking Fast and Slow is probably one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It’s on human decision making and psychology.

If you want to read some history, I highly recommend these two:

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre

The Splended and the Vile by Erik Larson

Both of these books are page turners. I couldn’t put them down.

If you’re software person, I highly recommend Designing Data Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann. It’s one of the most insightful and accessible technical books I’ve read, ever.

Re: Ask HN: Book Recommendations

#20

If you’re looking for some sci fi, I highly recommend The Expanse series. Thinking Fast and Slow is probably one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It’s on human decision making and psychology. If you want to read some history, I highly recommend these two: The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre The Splended and the Vile by Erik Larson Both of these books are page tu…

Thinking Fast and Slow is also not scientific at all, and riddled with errors and a complete lack of statistical validation.

https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...

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