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Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

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Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#1

Post by eatonphil »

Books like nand2tetris, Let Over Lambda, Lisp in Small Pieces, Hacker's Delight are iconic. They aren't required reading to do well in software but they are extremely interesting and are fairly easy to read (they are well edited).

What other books are in this vein?

Due to popularity, feel free to skip The Littler Schemer/MLer, HtDP, SICP, On Lisp, Thinking in Forth. And let's skip history, biography books like Soul of a New Machine and Isaacson's Jobs.

And again, let's skip books that you might actually consider required reading for experienced developers.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#2

Post by adampk »

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications...

I surprisingly really enjoyed it. Well written and it pulled back the veil on a lot of concepts that I thought were too complex for me to understand/enjoy.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#3

Post by eatonphil »

adampk wrote: post #2

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications... I surprisingly really enjoyed it. Well written and it pulled back the veil on a lot of concepts that I thought were too complex for me to understand/enjoy.

I agree it's well written but for me that's way more on the side of required reading.

I'm thinking about books you don't _need_ to read but that are just really neat or advanced discussions.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#4

Post by [deleted] »

adampk wrote: post #2

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications... I surprisingly really enjoyed it. Well written and it pulled back the veil on a lot of concepts that I thought were too complex for me to understand/enjoy.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#6

Post by eatonphil »

kinbiko wrote: post #5

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of_C... comes to mind.

Yes that's in the spirit! I personally did not enjoy it though because it tried to explain at a level that non-programmers could understand so it didn't exactly go fast enough. I got bored reading it so I wouldn't recommend it to other programmers.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#9

Post by eatonphil »

the_arun wrote: post #8

“Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon” - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250267595 by Amazon executives. Gives overview of Amazon’s core practices that made them successful.

I liked this book too! But not at all in the vein I'm talking about here. Thinking books that actually talk about software/programming in technical depth.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?

#10

Post by eatonphil »

jrmiii wrote: post #7

Based on the prompt, I feel like Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby would qualify. https://poignant.guide/

Weird! I like the originality. But does it actually go into depth or is it really just a tutorial to Ruby basics? If it's ultimately just a guide to Ruby basics I wouldn't include it here since I'm thinking of books with some serious technical depth/discussion.
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