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

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

#11
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.

I loved that book I'd recommend it to everyone. It's more of an Information Theory book than a software development book.

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

#14

deleted, misread the question

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

It would be a totally fine suggestion but it's way too practical! Let's keep this thread off topic!

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

#15
post #13

The Little Book of Semaphores: https://greenteapress.com/semaphores/LittleBookOfSemaphores.... It's about multithreading synchronization issues like the Dining Philosopher's problem, and it's brief, interesting, and very readable.

That looks awesome. Thanks!

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

#16
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.

I feel the opposite. I read it right after taking a computer organization class in college. Both Code and the course covered very similar topics. I really enjoyed and appreciated how clear and concise and friendly of a read it was even more after taking the course.

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

#17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel the opposite. I read it right after taking a computer organization class in college. Both Code and the course covered very similar topics. I really enjoyed and appreciated how clear and concise and friendly of a read it was even more after taking the course.

Fair enough!

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

#19
post #18

A list of this exact kind of books is presented here: https://blog.fogus.me/2015/04/27/six-works-of-computer-scien...

Awesome! Specifically not on my list already there's: Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming; Smalltalk-80: The language and its implementation; The Architecture of Symbolic Computers and Project Oberon: The design of an operating system and compiler.

This reminds me Niklaus Wirth's Compiler Construction probably belongs in this thread.

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

#20
I thought Knuts Literate Programming book (https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/lp.html) was extremely interesting, the paper "the errors of TeX" which is a part of it is one of the more interesting papers I've read.

Joe Armstrong used to recommend Algorithms + Data structures = Programs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithms_%2B_Data_Structures...) but I haven't read it.

Okay I know you said no to the little schemer but you technically didn't mention The Reasoned Schemer which is just amazingly fun to go through and wrap your head around (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/reasoned-schemer-second-editi...). Also see Will Byrds latest strangeloop keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AffW-7ika0E

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