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The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

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Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#61

Post by nobody31 »

Volpe wrote: post #6
javadyan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly believe that every programmer should be able to read and write C to some extent, and to learn it one must read K&R. So, yes, I agree that it is also one of the books that every programmer should read.

Curious why you think that? Every programmer? What does learning C provide that other programming languages (majority of which have some basis in C) don't teach you? Memory management (allocation, pointers, etc)? Pipes and buffers? They are present in other languages, and one could argue with memory management why 'every' programmer must learn those techniques even if they are never really applicable to them. I'm rea…

Same reason you can't be a mechanical engineer without having taken a shop class.

You can sit in front a CAD and FEM package all day - but if you don't appreciate how the things will actually be built you aren't going to be a really good engineer.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#62

Post by xyzzyz »

metaobject wrote: post #52
angersock wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SINGULAR OF FACT (ANECDOTE): I just thought I'd mention this as well. As my ME friend (at that time, roommate) was chugging through the book, he'd randomly come up and ask me questions or points of clarification. This culminated one evening during dinner. He, my other roommate (a Linux sysadmin/applied mathematician), and I (software developer and former ME) were enjoying some Indian food, and the ME began bugging us…

I wish I had friends like you guys. :( The kind of conversations that I have with them range from mind numbingly boring to suicide inducing.

This is what you're likely to get if you do not drop out, and go to a good school. Lots of smart people tend to get together in academia.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#63

Post by xyzzyz »

happy4crazy wrote: post #30
mosburger wrote: post #26

I graduated w/ a degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering with a minor in CompSci. From the review, this sounds like all the stuff I learned that wasn't CompSci, distilled into an easy-to-read form. Stuff like flip-flops, RISC assembly, how memory works, etc. It sounds fantastic. Having the benefit of an EE based undergrad degree was awesome for this reason, esp. since my first job was firmware design. The downsid…

I was a physics major in college and got into programming a couple years ago. In my experience, of the hard sciences, CS is by far the most amenable to self-study. CS isn't easier, whatever that might mean, but CS is amazingly inviting: if you've got a computer and a textbook budget, you can learn some really neat stuff. So don't despair; get studying!

For math, you don't even need to own a computer.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#64

Post by tricolon »

saulrh wrote: post #4

My parents bought me this book when I was in elementary school. I was fascinated with it; I read it and reread it until I understood everything in it. It took me something like eight months, but when I was done I had an instinctive grasp of computers and mathematics that many of my college classmates still don't have. Highly recommended.

> My parents bought me this book when I was in elementary school.

I wish everyone had parents like yours.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#65

Post by steauengeglase »

zafka wrote: post #38

While this book sounds like it would cover a lot of what someone might have missed in a CS program if they were not very inquisitive, I picked that stuff up, and continue to do so as i forget by going back and looking things up. My vote for must read is: "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Pirsig

I wouldn't even say it is geared towards the CS student/CS grad, more like general nerd reading. If I knew a kid who was "interested in computers", but there was no one around to give them a helping hand I'd definitely give them a copy of CODE and The C Programming Language.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#66

Post by jff »

nobody31 wrote: post #55
kenjackson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on where you are. If you've done a CS undergrad program you probably already know everything in CODE. But for a bright high school student or self-taught programmer interested in CS the only book I'd rank higher would be SICP.

If ONLY cs undergrads knew everything in code. I'm still trying to teach some of them that a memory copy isn't instant.

Just trying to teach them that somewhere, down under all that runtime, there's a bunch of hardware which deals with the world 32 bits at a time, and that in the end all these magical "objects" really cook down to a bunch of memory addresses... yeow.

That's what I loved about being in computer engineering. You'll sit there and fill in charts of the cache, perform Tomasulo scheduling by hand, and by god at the end you'll have a pretty decent idea of how the machine does things. Not to say that CS students can't or don't learn the same thing, just that the ones I knew tended not to.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#67

Post by nobody31 »

jff wrote: post #66
nobody31 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ONLY cs undergrads knew everything in code. I'm still trying to teach some of them that a memory copy isn't instant.

Just trying to teach them that somewhere, down under all that runtime, there's a bunch of hardware which deals with the world 32 bits at a time, and that in the end all these magical "objects" really cook down to a bunch of memory addresses... yeow. That's what I loved about being in computer engineering. You'll sit there and fill in charts of the cache, perform Tomasulo scheduling by hand, and by god at the end you'…

But you don't need all that stuff any more - you have garbage collection !

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#68

Post by saulrh »

tricolon wrote: post #64
saulrh wrote: post #4

My parents bought me this book when I was in elementary school. I was fascinated with it; I read it and reread it until I understood everything in it. It took me something like eight months, but when I was done I had an instinctive grasp of computers and mathematics that many of my college classmates still don't have. Highly recommended.

> My parents bought me this book when I was in elementary school. I wish everyone had parents like yours.

So do I. My parents are awesome.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#69

Post by eru »

xyzzyz wrote: post #62
metaobject wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had friends like you guys. :( The kind of conversations that I have with them range from mind numbingly boring to suicide inducing.

This is what you're likely to get if you do not drop out, and go to a good school. Lots of smart people tend to get together in academia.

Yes, but it's not the only way. There are other ways to find smart people. But they may require more work.

Re: The Book That Every Programmer Should Read

#70

Post by gnosis »

xyzzyz wrote: post #63
happy4crazy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a physics major in college and got into programming a couple years ago. In my experience, of the hard sciences, CS is by far the most amenable to self-study. CS isn't easier, whatever that might mean, but CS is amazingly inviting: if you've got a computer and a textbook budget, you can learn some really neat stuff. So don't despair; get studying!

For math, you don't even need to own a computer.

The dean summons the CS department chair to his office.

"You people are bankrupting us!" he fumes.

"Why do you need all this expensive equipment? All the mathematicians ever ask for is pencils, paper, and erasers. And the philosophers are better still: they don’t even ask for erasers!"

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