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A non-standard book list for software developers

mihaiolteanu.me

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Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#31

Post by molteanu »

exdsq wrote: post #28

On the note of Euclid's Elements, I took a short course on Plato's "Theory of Forms" when I was just learning to really code and it's what helped OOP click in my head. It's fun when totally random subjects help you get an insight into one another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms

Yes, those Forms have had a lasting impact on Western Philosophy for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it hasn't had some impact on the OOP thinking, in general, even though indirectly. If you read on Hume and the British Empiricists from the 18th Century, for example, you'd be surprised how many "modern ideas" you find in there. After all, programming languages at large have a long history of philosophical ideas before them. Before they could come into being, that is.

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#32

Post by lolinder »

irutirw222 wrote: post #17

I can't comment on the compsci books (they do seem interesting), but I can comment on the mathematical ones where I have expertise: - Using Euclid is manifestly a really bad idea, since his way of formalizing geometry is not the sharpest. Mathematical logic has developed since Euclid published his book thousands of years ago and Euclidean geometry has been re-formalized a number of times to really flesh out the theor…

They don't recommending Euclid as a way to learn geometry, they recommend him because his book has been the foundation of the scientific dialog for the last several millennia. Regardless of whether his formalization of geometry is the most up-to-date, every subsequent mathematician and logician has been building on The Elements. That fact alone makes it valuable to read, not as a way to learn geometry, but as a way to understand where we came from.

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#34

Post by unfocussed_mike »

Smaug123 wrote: post #29
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoftstadter is fairly near standard isn't it? Assuming you mean actually reading GEB and not The Mind's I or I Am A Strange Loop . Not generally a course text but very common reading among CS/AI students. Some of whom even read all the way to the end instead of just pretending to! The book I would most recommend software developers read is Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert. It's a l…

I found Hofstadter's _Le Ton beau de Marot_ fascinating, and also almost nobody has even heard of it!

I had not heard of it either. Very interesting. Thanks!

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#35

Post by m3047 »

Spivak, 2nd Edition, is how I taught myself calculus. Teaching myself calculus was the deal I made so that the head of the university mathematics department would let me take numerical analysis as a nonmatric. I have Pearl's ("fancy curve fitting") _Heuristics_ on my bookshelf as well.

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#37

Post by molteanu »

lolinder wrote: post #32
irutirw222 wrote: post #17

I can't comment on the compsci books (they do seem interesting), but I can comment on the mathematical ones where I have expertise: - Using Euclid is manifestly a really bad idea, since his way of formalizing geometry is not the sharpest. Mathematical logic has developed since Euclid published his book thousands of years ago and Euclidean geometry has been re-formalized a number of times to really flesh out the theor…

They don't recommending Euclid as a way to learn geometry, they recommend him because his book has been the foundation of the scientific dialog for the last several millennia. Regardless of whether his formalization of geometry is the most up-to-date, every subsequent mathematician and logician has been building on The Elements. That fact alone makes it valuable to read, not as a way to learn geometry, but as a way t…

Nicely said.

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#38

Post by blacksmith_tb »

electrondood wrote: post #23

In a similar topic of books about system design, someone on HN recommended A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander et. al. They're not about designing distributed software systems... they're a complete design language for the proper design of a city, from the grossest elements to the most granular. You can flip to a random page and understand what makes a front yard really fulfill…

Alexander is fun for sure for thinking about how we got where we are (I suppose if you were able to build your own house it could also be directly used to achieve various goals, which would be fun).

Along similar lines I would recommend Donella Meadows' work, for example her essay Leverage Points[1].

1: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-t...

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#39

Post by irutirw222 »

lolinder wrote: post #32
irutirw222 wrote: post #17

I can't comment on the compsci books (they do seem interesting), but I can comment on the mathematical ones where I have expertise: - Using Euclid is manifestly a really bad idea, since his way of formalizing geometry is not the sharpest. Mathematical logic has developed since Euclid published his book thousands of years ago and Euclidean geometry has been re-formalized a number of times to really flesh out the theor…

They don't recommending Euclid as a way to learn geometry, they recommend him because his book has been the foundation of the scientific dialog for the last several millennia. Regardless of whether his formalization of geometry is the most up-to-date, every subsequent mathematician and logician has been building on The Elements. That fact alone makes it valuable to read, not as a way to learn geometry, but as a way t…

Then you, as Moicanu below, didn't understood my point: You learn less from the Elements than from later, curated sources. Analogously, no one would advocate reading Newton's Principia to "understand where we came from". You would first learn the theory (geometry resp physics) with up-to-date sources, then read a commentary of the original (which is often longer than the original), and only then you'd be able to get something out of reading a translation of the original.

Thus, by reading the original works you will confuse yourself with the obscure notation you will encounter, semi-circular arguments and other problems (both the Elements and the Principia are riddled with problems), which actually have prompted many many scholarly works commenting and fixing these.

Re: A non-standard book list for software developers

#40

Post by ivansavz »

jamjamjamjamjam wrote: post #10
civilized wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Calculus pick is completely fungible. There are at least two other popular Calc books that different people would say the exact same things about. Euclid as the ideal place to learn logic seems debatable, although I can't think of a better resource off the top of my head. The Xinu OS and LISP recommendations I've never seen before, so those were potentially valuable for me at least.

What calc books are those? Reading a calculus book is a massive investment because I will be rereading pages. So I’d like to find the best one first

Others have already mentioned the classics, but if you're looking for something more off the beaten path, you can check out my book: No Bullshit Guide to Math & Physics which covers calculus in approx. 150 pages (Chapter 5).

You can see an extended preview of it here: https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSmathphys_v5_pr...

And a standalone concept map here: https://minireference.com/static/conceptmaps/math_and_physic... (bottom of the page)

Check out the reviews on amazon if you're interested. It hasn't been adopted as the main textbook at any university yet, but many teachers recommend it as supplemental reading for their courses.

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