I think the whole "Head First" series from O'Reilly qualifies.
The "Grokking _" series by Manning is also along similar lines.
Quirky computing books
51–60 of 121 posts
Re: Quirky computing books
#52Tricks of the MS-DOS masters.
Might qualify as quirky.
Felt like I was really learning some important arcane knowledge reading this and testing out the commands in grade school.
At the time of purchase, the computer shop owner suggested I was wasting my time because computers would be programming themselves in ten years, or something like that.
Re: Quirky computing books
#53My favorite quirky computing book was something I found in the library by chance at my university when I should've been attending a Principles of Programming Languages course. We'd been learning Prolog in class for the past two weeks but I'm terrible at learning from lectures, so eventually I decided it'd be a better use of my time to locate a book I could teach myself from rather than doodling in class. IIRC it hadn…
Hm, the only Alice in Wonderland themed CS book I recall, is "Foundations of Databases" which has sections on datalog : http://webdam.inria.fr/Alice/
That looks like a nice book, but definitely not it (I may read the datalog bits though—thanks!).
The one in the library was ~200 pages, solely on prolog, Alice in Wonderland not only on the cover art, but constantly used throughout the writing itself.
Re: Quirky computing books
#54A little Java, a few patterns, by Matthias Felleisen. Delightful book.
Re: Quirky computing books
#55I consider all game mapping/modding books to be quirky.
Re: Quirky computing books
#56"Computer Lib / Dream Machines" self-published by Ted Nelson in 1974 "the epic of the computer revolution, the bible of the hacker dream. [Nelson] was stubborn enough to publish it when no one else seemed to think it was a good idea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines
This is the one I was expecting to see in this list. If anything counts as a quirky computing book it’s Computer Lib/Dream Machines.
Re: Quirky computing books
#57A little Java, a few patterns, by Matthias Felleisen. Delightful book.
I love that the creator of one of the most popular Lisps today wrote a book about programming in Java.
Re: Quirky computing books
#58My favorite quirky computing book was something I found in the library by chance at my university when I should've been attending a Principles of Programming Languages course. We'd been learning Prolog in class for the past two weeks but I'm terrible at learning from lectures, so eventually I decided it'd be a better use of my time to locate a book I could teach myself from rather than doodling in class. IIRC it hadn…
It's not all Prolog, but it is all Alice: "Compared to What?: An Introduction to the Analysis of Algorithms" by Gregory J. E. Rawlins
Re: Quirky computing books
#59After going to college for journalism and graphic design in the early 90s, I decided to become a programmer, despite not having done it since I was in grade school (though, I was pretty hot shit on my TRS-80). My first book on the topic was, in retrospect, pretty crazy, but I've been a tech professional for 25+ years now, so it must have been useful. I'm speaking of The Cartoon Guide to Computers [1][2]. If there's a…
I came here to recommend Gonick - you beat me to it.
I'll add that really ALL of his 'Cartoon' books are worth a read.
Re: Quirky computing books
#60My list:
- The Plenitude - Rich Gold
Not a computing book with code but it taught me a lot about what can be done with computers, and that they are marvelous machines.
- Architecture of Symbolic Computers - Kogge
An ode to what could have been if RISC and x86 hadn't steamrolled the landscape.
- Thinking Forth - Leo Brodie
Forth is wild, this book is wild, it's really a different world. After multiple attempts over 25 years, I'm giving it another go this year and this time it is actually clicking.
- Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology - Adam Young, Moti Yung
This is way out of my league in terms of cryptography, but this fascinated me early in my career, and led me to implement one or the other algorithm. Very prescient in many ways.
- Patterns of Software - Richard Gabriel
Not directly about computing, but I got a lot of deep insights from this book. It also brought me to the next book:
- Notes on the synthesis of form - Christopher Alexander
This is not a computing book per se, but it goes to the core of system architecture. Even in its original field, this book is kind of wild.
- All Mathematica Guidebooks - Michael Trott
Mathematica is wild, these books are wild, they are old but still oh so inspiring.