I like the list. But, Lisp?
A non-standard book list for software developers
51–60 of 112 posts
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#52In 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…
I haven't heard of this book, is it actually about designing cities? I'm probably way off but all I can't think of is that once we started designing cities we built crap. Take the UK for example all its beautiful amazing places were built before we had planning offices. They seem to just have evolved.
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#53In 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…
25 years ago my (then) wife and I both read Christopher Alexander while designing a house. It was great.
I'd heard of him, and read those books, because I was (am) a computer programmer, and that was before we decided to build a house!
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#54In 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…
I haven't heard of this book, is it actually about designing cities? I'm probably way off but all I can't think of is that once we started designing cities we built crap. Take the UK for example all its beautiful amazing places were built before we had planning offices. They seem to just have evolved.
No, houses. Each "chapter" is just a page (well both sides of a leaf), sort of like The Society of Mind.
One example is (paraphrased) "find the nicest spot on the property and don't build on it, because then you'll lose it". Another is "corridors are dead spaces; you move through them, and pretty much ignore them, on your way to do something". Not gospel or absolute rules; rather rules of thumb, or ways to talk about and think about what we wanted to accomplish.
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Studying calculus in particular makes little sens for compsci. yeah it makes little sense if you don't want to be able to write programs that solve the world's major problems so if you are content with writing cat picture apps, skip calculus
We were just talking about this over lunch yesterday (software engineers at a medical device company). I won’t dismiss calculus, but it was generally agreed that linear algebra and statistics were most important, at least for what we’re doing.
Although for statistics (and probability as well), Calculus has a way of sneaking in there.
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Depends enormously on your level and willingness and dedication. At that level the best ones are Spivak, Apostol, Fichtenholtz, Kudryavtsev.
If I remember right, Apostol uses a non-standard sequence (integration first, then differentiation). That probably only matters if you might be using a different book for another part of the sequence, though.
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#57Good books but still quite standard. Spivak’s is standard on initial calculus courses at universities. If you really wanted non-standard but relevant authors I would add Feyerabend, Kuhn, Kahneman, Dostoyevsky, Borges, Taleb, Montaigne, Popper, Hofstadter, Don Norman, Alexandrescu. Add something about systems of representation by Kierkegaard or Nietzche or some interpretations by later authors.
I think Spivak is way less common as an initial calc text than Stewart. Spivak's approach is much more rigorous than most calc textbooks, and is in many ways almost an introduction to real analysis. Note, for example, that Spivak prefers to view the definite integral as the proper form of an integral rather than the typical approach taken by many introductory texts where the integral is viewed as the anti-derivative and then for ∫_a^b f(x)d(x) they just take F(b)-F(a) and call it a day. I would imagine that most introductory calculus students do close to zero proofs with most of the time spent on memorizing the various rubrics for finding derivatives and anti-derivatives. Spivak covers those, but the exercises are at least 50% proofs rather than being 90–100% calculation.
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#58On 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
Absolutely this! Some Neoplatonist literature distinguishes between God qua engineer of forms and God qua reifyer of them. And there's object inheritance implicit in their hierarchy of forms/angels, ie. Eriugena's that which creates and is created.
Platonism is like ontological OOP. :D
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#59Has anyone here read LISP in small pieces? I've never used LISP but would still like to read it. Would you recommend it? (it's not cheap, otherwise I'd just buy it without the due diligence)
Re: A non-standard book list for software developers
#60Has anyone here read LISP in small pieces ? I've never used LISP but would still like to read it. Would you recommend it? (it's not cheap, otherwise I'd just buy it without the due diligence)
You can find it on the typical pirate sites (pdf and epub), I haven't been able to find sample chapters elsewhere. Of course, if you like it, buy the original to get the physical book :)