CODE is good, but there's a weird disjoint between the very slow start (really, the stuff with light switches and relays goes on for much too long) and the suddenly much harder late section.
The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#12Sounds a lot like my Digital Circuits course in university. We started with a breadboard of transistors, and after we built each component we got that component as an IC to build the next level of abstraction (flip-flop → memory → adder → processor → etc) . At the end we ended up with a fully programmable computer that we were tasked to program as a sensor-driven traffic light controller.
Seeing every step from the ground-up really helps demystify the machines you see around yourself every day.
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#13I picked the basics of programming and how computers work with a book called "The Beginner's Computer Handbook - Understanding & Programming The Micro". Actually this book was the reason I became a programmer. I was 8 years old when received it as present on birthday from my dad.
I could not find a link to the book, but found this blog post which has also some pictures:
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2004/06/the-beginners-comp...
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#14I am a programmer - have been earning my bread by programming for over a decade and before that had been studying CS for another 5 years with all those courses on Turing Machines, Random Access Machines, von Neuman computation model, logic and so on. Why should I read this book? Is there anything in it that was not covered by this standard curriculum?
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#15It sounds like the book does a lot to flesh out software engineering as a legitimate form of engineering. Programming is how we apply and manipulate electrical circuits, which arise from the natural laws of electromagnetism.
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#16The book every programmer should read is Programming Pearls, isn't it? :-)
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#17I am a programmer - have been earning my bread by programming for over a decade and before that had been studying CS for another 5 years with all those courses on Turing Machines, Random Access Machines, von Neuman computation model, logic and so on. Why should I read this book? Is there anything in it that was not covered by this standard curriculum?
No, there isn't. But it brought me so much joy to figure that the core of what I have learned about computers in the university can be conveyed in one small book, in such simple language and with so gentle learning curve! It starts off with explaining the work of digital switch with an example of flashlight (who can't understand that!) and goes all way to digital circuits, CPU, low level and high level language at such a gentle pace that it is marvelous to behold even if you don't actually learn anything new.
Ever since I read it, I recommend it to every person who wants to learn about computers. I think this should be the first book to read for any person who wants to learn about computers on any level.
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#18The book that influenced on how I think about programming and eventually made me better programmer is the Pragmatic Programmer.
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#19I am a programmer - have been earning my bread by programming for over a decade and before that had been studying CS for another 5 years with all those courses on Turing Machines, Random Access Machines, von Neuman computation model, logic and so on. Why should I read this book? Is there anything in it that was not covered by this standard curriculum?
Think from the point of view of someone who does not have as much experience as you do.
Plus, not all universities cover everything that is in that book. For example, we studied logic and elements of computability theory, but we were never taught how all these concepts are brought to work in modern hardware/software.
This book brings the knowledge (that some are only able to gather through experience) in a compact and systematic form.
Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read
#20"The Elements of Computing Systems" is very good in that respect too: http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html