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What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

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Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#61

Post by jacques_chester »

radicalbyte wrote: post #32
feral wrote: post #19

I'm not sure that all those people on Stackexchange have read the question properly. The question is "What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?" I.e. given the set of books that every programmer should read, which one is the single most influential? As a programmer, lets consider the answer to the question, as parsed logically (regardless of intent). Typing 'most influential books' into G…

If we're assuming an America-centric question and your abstract definition then you can summarize it with just one book: 1. The Bible. Closely followed by whatever the first book that people in stackoverflow's demographic read whilst learning to read.

Why is this being downvoted?

I'm an atheist, but even I can see the bible's profound impact on the course of western and near-eastern civilisation.

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#62

Post by ggchappell »

phillmv wrote: post #21
famousactress wrote: post #13

Man, still Code Complete? I dunno. Wasn't that big a fan, honestly. I think I got more out of the first three chapters than the sum of the rest of the book. If we're talking about technical books, Refactoring is easily the most beneficial read I can remember having. I was pleased to see it (barely) trump Design Patterns... a book that I think (through no real fault of it's own) has spoiled more developer-years than i…

Going through the list: Code Complete: First ed 1993 Prag Prog: 1999 SICP: 80s? K&R C: ditto CLRS: 1990 Refactoring: 1999? GoF DP: 1994 Mythical Man Month: late 70s, 80s? TAOCP: Decades ago, and not a serious suggestion Dragon book: 1986 GEB: 80s was it? Programming Pearls: 1999 CODE: 1999 Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at leas…

> Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at least two full generations.

> I don't know about you guys but that makes me a little sad.

It doesn't make me sad at all. It says that computer programming is not just about the latest whiz-bang tool. Rather, the field has a core of worthwhile, enduring knowledge that does not become obsolete just because you switch to a new language/framework/platform/whatever. And this core is worth spending time and effort to learn, because it is not going to go out of date.

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#63

Post by [deleted] »

phillmv wrote: post #21
famousactress wrote: post #13

Man, still Code Complete? I dunno. Wasn't that big a fan, honestly. I think I got more out of the first three chapters than the sum of the rest of the book. If we're talking about technical books, Refactoring is easily the most beneficial read I can remember having. I was pleased to see it (barely) trump Design Patterns... a book that I think (through no real fault of it's own) has spoiled more developer-years than i…

Going through the list: Code Complete: First ed 1993 Prag Prog: 1999 SICP: 80s? K&R C: ditto CLRS: 1990 Refactoring: 1999? GoF DP: 1994 Mythical Man Month: late 70s, 80s? TAOCP: Decades ago, and not a serious suggestion Dragon book: 1986 GEB: 80s was it? Programming Pearls: 1999 CODE: 1999 Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at leas…

[deleted]

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#64

Post by rguzman »

phillmv wrote: post #21
famousactress wrote: post #13

Man, still Code Complete? I dunno. Wasn't that big a fan, honestly. I think I got more out of the first three chapters than the sum of the rest of the book. If we're talking about technical books, Refactoring is easily the most beneficial read I can remember having. I was pleased to see it (barely) trump Design Patterns... a book that I think (through no real fault of it's own) has spoiled more developer-years than i…

Going through the list: Code Complete: First ed 1993 Prag Prog: 1999 SICP: 80s? K&R C: ditto CLRS: 1990 Refactoring: 1999? GoF DP: 1994 Mythical Man Month: late 70s, 80s? TAOCP: Decades ago, and not a serious suggestion Dragon book: 1986 GEB: 80s was it? Programming Pearls: 1999 CODE: 1999 Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at leas…

this is just a reflection of the fact that now we can use the internet to spread ideas and this audience are/were the earliest adopters.

in 5-10 years (or even now, maybe?) people will be talking about what single blog post is the single most influential post every programmer should read.

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#65

Post by spacemanaki »

neilk wrote: post #37
phillmv wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going through the list: Code Complete: First ed 1993 Prag Prog: 1999 SICP: 80s? K&R C: ditto CLRS: 1990 Refactoring: 1999? GoF DP: 1994 Mythical Man Month: late 70s, 80s? TAOCP: Decades ago, and not a serious suggestion Dragon book: 1986 GEB: 80s was it? Programming Pearls: 1999 CODE: 1999 Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at leas…

Given that JavaScript and Python are very mainstream now, we need some sort of text that covers functional techniques for the average programmer in scripting languages. SICP is dated and doesn't really match what modern languages can do. Mark-Jason Dominus' "Higher-Order Perl" is fantastic, but unfortunately specific to a language that's most programmers are not choosing in 2011. There was an attempt at a JavaScript…

> SICP is dated and doesn't really match what modern languages can do.

I disagree. There's over 200 pages before they even introduce mutation and impure functions. Later they touch on the thorny problems that mutation creates when they touch on concurrent programming. There's sections on building lazy streams which are core parts of Clojure and Haskell. And I don't think there's a more accessible intro compilers and programming languages text than chapters 3 and 4.

While there might be other places to learn about functional programming to apply to working in Python and JavaScript, SICP is a fine place to learn the fundamentals. In some ways, I would say modern programming languages are just starting to catch up to SICP. (yes I know Haskell is pretty old, and disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of SICP)

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#66

Post by mdsatbom »

phillmv wrote: post #21
famousactress wrote: post #13

Man, still Code Complete? I dunno. Wasn't that big a fan, honestly. I think I got more out of the first three chapters than the sum of the rest of the book. If we're talking about technical books, Refactoring is easily the most beneficial read I can remember having. I was pleased to see it (barely) trump Design Patterns... a book that I think (through no real fault of it's own) has spoiled more developer-years than i…

Going through the list: Code Complete: First ed 1993 Prag Prog: 1999 SICP: 80s? K&R C: ditto CLRS: 1990 Refactoring: 1999? GoF DP: 1994 Mythical Man Month: late 70s, 80s? TAOCP: Decades ago, and not a serious suggestion Dragon book: 1986 GEB: 80s was it? Programming Pearls: 1999 CODE: 1999 Off the top items in that list, only two have them have been published in the last TWELVE years, which in our industry is at leas…

Euclid's Elements: 300BC

Many of the books above focus on the fundamentals which is what makes them classics.

Also, The second edition of Programming Pearls was around 1999. The first edition was much earlier.

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#67

Post by shaggyfrog »

brooksbp wrote: post #22
shaggyfrog wrote: post #20

No love for Edward Yourdon's Death March? I think a copy should be given to every CS student upon graduation.

Haven't heard of Edward Yourdon, so Google'd. Since you are familiar, can you comment on this: http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-07-1997/swol-07-...

The biggest takeaway from Death March for me was that politics can dominate everything else in a project. Learning the skills to identify political nonsense, understanding how it got that way and what options you have (and sometimes that meansno options at all) is something programmers should learn as soon as possible.

To be honest, I had forgotten the book contained anything about heavyweight process methodology. I'll have to grab it out of the shelf when I get home.

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#69

Post by watmough »

russell wrote: post #46
brooksbp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't heard of Edward Yourdon, so Google'd. Since you are familiar, can you comment on this: http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-07-1997/swol-07-...

It's a good read, but it's nearly 15 years old and there may not be enough context to where Yourdon was coming from. Almost as much time has passed since this essay was written as there was in Yourdon' career up to Death March. Much has happened since then. No one uses heavyweight methodologies, like UML. Processes are light and agile. Languages like Java, Python, and Ruby are way better, as are the associated tools.…

Maybe at the leading edge, but I joined a death-march project in 2004, then left another one in 2008.

And I believe that many young programmers are still being thrown onto late projects.

I'd really love to believe that UML is dead, but can it really be true? cite?

Re: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

#70

Post by phzbOx »

Great programmers won't learn a lot of things from 'Code complete' but since the question says 'every programmers', I guess it makes sense to have it rank #1.

But talking for me, the most influential book I read is SICP.

But before that, the book that really opened my mind about 'professional programming' was effective C++. I wonder if Scott Meyers read HN.. and what's happening with him. For some reasons, I even remember the name of his dog (Persephone) which one of his book was dedicated!

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