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Bret Victor's favourite books

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Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#31

Post by teamonkey »

hf wrote: post #13

Undoubtedly these excellent books call for a unique presentation. I, however, would like to see simple text-only list companion to go along with it. Turns out, this is not just a matter of grep'ing through the source: the only actual "text" are the link URLs. I wrote a script[0] to create the list for amazon links at least: # Script redacted - I think HN isn't happy # with my scraping. Fair enough. The list contains…

Viewing the page in IE11 gives a text-only version that - unfortunately - appears to be outdated and incomplete.

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#33

Post by drcode »

hmgibson23 wrote: post #6

Literature is notably absent...

Yeah, for some reason it is culturally unacceptable in our society to claim that fiction literature is unimportant.

We live in a society where it's fine to make shocking arguments about just about anything, but if anyone were to dare argue "What Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare had to say is pretty irrelevant and uninteresting at this point" they are a social pariah.

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#34

Post by al-king »

tootie wrote: post #22

I thought Godel, Escher, Bach was a total snooze. It was like 800 pages of Hofstadter trying to prove he was clever.

If you're not into his style, GEB can be a bit perverse, but Hofstadter is genuinely excited by the ideas (and the games and wordplay he uses to convey them). If you look at the sum of his work, its tone comes across as pretty humble - humble for himself, that is; not apologetic for the ideas.

His latest with Emmanuel Sander, "Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking", is comparatively much more straightforward and less obfuscated, and still fascinating.

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#35

Post by nickloewen »

nickloewen wrote: post #16
hf wrote: post #13

Undoubtedly these excellent books call for a unique presentation. I, however, would like to see simple text-only list companion to go along with it. Turns out, this is not just a matter of grep'ing through the source: the only actual "text" are the link URLs. I wrote a script[0] to create the list for amazon links at least: # Script redacted - I think HN isn't happy # with my scraping. Fair enough. The list contains…

Here's the beginning of the list[0] ('Design' and 'Engineering') in plain text (Markdown), using the "I can just type it out faster than I can try to parse it" approach. I'll do more later, maybe. The 'unique presentation' also seems to mean no alt-text (bad) and no title-text (disappointing)... [0]: http://pastebin.com/9NKtqJSw Edit: Added a little more[1]. Maybe someone else will add some while I go write an exam :…

A much more thorough version: https://gist.github.com/nickloewen/10565777

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#37

Post by harimau »

hmgibson23 wrote: post #15
cwbrandsma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew there was something I liked about this list. (aren't there enough of those already?)

No. I just think it's odd he hasn't included it that's all.

I don't find it so odd.

If you read more than a few interviews with professional writers of literature, you'll see them mention how they don't read much fiction but a lot of non-fiction.

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#39

Post by jzelinskie »

tootie wrote: post #22

I thought Godel, Escher, Bach was a total snooze. It was like 800 pages of Hofstadter trying to prove he was clever.

If you're interested in the Hofstadter's opinions of consciousness, "I am a Strange Loop" is a much, much easier read. I couldn't even penetrate the start of GEB, but I found myself burning through "I am a Strange Loop".

Re: Bret Victor's favourite books

#40

Post by spikels »

Not sure Howard Zinn's "A People’s History of the United States" is a good pick unless you are already very well versed in history (and many other subjects) and know what to ignore. While an interesting read he takes a strongly biased point of view and many of its claims have not stood the test of time (e.g. Rosenberg's atomic spying). So you may learn may things but many of them will be false.
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