Programming books you might want to consider reading • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#101

Post by pyromine » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 12:01 AM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #98

smnplk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, math really isn't a spectator sport. You have to do the work on your own, reading is only part of the work. A very time consuming hobby indeed.

It depends. I tend to remember a fair amount of material in math classes from just paying attention. I rarely explicitly study at all for math classes and when I do the results are mixed. Example: In calculus 2 there were all those annoying weird trig integral forms. I couldn't remember them all because it was like a new one arrived daily for a while. I set out to do practice problems with them but still didn't remem…

I'll add on my own anecdote here, I'm a stats major and I've found that in my stats (as opposed to pure math) classes, I find the learning is very much done just by reading the book because every new concept is just an intuitive application of earlier ones, once introduced to the concept I can understand it even without working through the excercises.

In my more pure math classes (and admittedly in some topics like counting problems) I have to spend a lore more time doing exercises to actually have a grasp of the material. It's frustrating but that's just how life goes.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#102

Post by nsomaru » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 12:49 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #85

tech2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the point of a university was to teach you _how_ to learn, the actual material learned being an added bonus.

Some students might learn how to learn as a side effect of surviving the system, but there are easier ways of surviving the system than actually learning. There are strong incentives against actually learning too -- e.g. when the material to be learned is obsolete or irrelevant in the face of modern technology. In any case I think you're the first I've heard say they thought the point of the system is to learn how to…

"The aim of the University is a true enlargement of mind... the power of viewing many things at once." [0]

Would very much like to see Cardinal Newman's Ideas around 'liberal' and 'servile' education catch the attention of the HN crowd. We're doing learning and advancement all wrong by focusing on utilitarian outcomes for universities rather than pure development of the mind (whence would flow marvellous creativity).

[0] http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#103

Post by anthnguyen94 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

Cool to see lots of comments on real life algorithm applications, if anyone is interested in diving deeper there's a good book that came out recently called "Algorithms to Live By" by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. It talks about how we often use CS algorithms in real life without knowing.

If you want a glimpse here's a talk they gave at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwKj-wgXteo

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#104

Post by gmfawcett » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:02 AM UTC

I think it's on-topic to offer a shout-out to the csbooks subreddit [1], where we share links to freely (legally) available CS books.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks/

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#105

Post by eabraham » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:04 AM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #74

Interesting comment on DeMarco's Peopleware: > This book seemed convincing when I read it in college. It even had all sorts of studies backing up what they said. No deadlines is better than having deadlines. Offices are better than cubicles. Basically all devs I talk to agree with this stuff. > But virtually every successful company is run the opposite way. Even Microsoft is remodeling buildings from individual offic…

This is a very interesting idea and something I am questioning at the startup I'm currently working for (~50 engineers). I don't think the idea of software quality and time to market are diametrically opposite ideas. I'm the tech lead of an infrastructure team and we have been focusing on refactoring some of the most egregious code. After completing a few of these projects, my team has noticed that the development speed of some of the teams interfacing with our refactored code have seen improvement. Small projects with 5 day estimates are completing in 3 days and engineers are not as frustrated at the state of the codebase.

I understand that time to market can sometimes be a differentiator and its acceptable to build a quick and dirty MVP. Version one of a startup's codebase is going to be messy because you are constantly making tradeoffs to survive. Once the startup leaves crunch mode, engineering leadership should be allocating at least 10% of engineering time to refactoring. Otherwise the bloated, unstructured codebase could be holding the organization back from building the next market defining feature in time to beat the competition.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#106

Post by deerpig » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:05 AM UTC

andrew_wc_brown wrote: post #18

questionr wrote: post #3

I often here comments about finishing a mathematical/technical book over the course of a "few" weekends. But I don't see how thats possible if it includes completing all (or even most of) the given exercises. Especially when you have a full-time job.

I think such books are pointless if you aren't going to use them in your day-to-day work.

I've actually ended up having to let go almost every person working for me that takes your view.

Learning such things expands what you can do at work, no matter what it is. We no longer live in a world where you can punch a clock and do the same thing for decades until you get the gold watch and are send home to wait to die watching TV on your barcolounger (I don't think I've seen one of those in 30 years). Things are changing so fast that the only way to stay ahead is to learn, learn deep and actively practice your art or craft.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#107

Post by 0x54MUR41 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:13 AM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #48

The best Calculus book I've ever found is free from MIT. https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-tex...

Thank you for sharing this.

I used calculus book that written by Mathematics department of my university. Beside that, I read Calculus book by Purcell et al. [1]. This book is a good choice for supplement and exercise.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Differential-Equations-Dale-...

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#108

Post by qntty » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:59 AM UTC

zump wrote: post #16

ambulancechaser wrote: post #4

Dan Luu's style is so impressive for his ability to be super objective about pros and cons of things. There's a post he wrote where he traces his career and lists out possible missteps and successes. His ability to dispassionately look at situations and evaluate them on their merits rather than allow their connotations into his judgement is quite enjoyable to read. Also his talk at strange loop was spectacular.

He comes off as an expert but he hasn't done anything impressive to my mind.

Most experts haven't, you don't need to do anything impressive to have expertise.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#109

Post by geoffreyiy1 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 2:03 AM UTC

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #64

jcoffland wrote: post #48

The best Calculus book I've ever found is free from MIT. https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-tex...

Adrian Banner's The Calculus Lifesaver is an excellent companion text as well. It's not really a textbook, but it's a great reference to help you alongside it that's written in a way meant to be accessible to introductory students. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8351.html

Made account to reply:

I got this book at a used bookstore for $10 as my first calculus book, I read the entire thing over a week long vacation.

It was sweeter than candy, I have not read a better non-fiction book in my entire (18 year old) life.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#110

Post by sedachv » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

smnplk wrote: post #80

cruise02 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably isn't if you're coming at the material for the first time, or after a long break. I took a 15-week course in Linear Algebra a few months ago, and we only covered about half the book in that time. I spent just about every weekend and evening doing those exercises. It's very time consuming. However, if you gave me my old College Algebra book, I might be able to skim through it in a month of weekends and ref…

Well, math really isn't a spectator sport. You have to do the work on your own, reading is only part of the work. A very time consuming hobby indeed.

It can be if you make it. It has been about a decade since I finished coursework for my pure math degree, I do not work in mathematics, and I am enjoying mathematics more than ever just from reading books. I do not miss doing textbook exercises (evaluating integrals? computing determinants? I reach for Maxima or Wolfram Alpha), and am content with reading other people's proofs.