SICP
Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
41–50 of 156 posts
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#42Programming Pearls - http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/pearls/ A book that really makes you think about algorithms and the kind of clever tricks that are sometimes needed to make things work fast.
The sequel is good, too!
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#43Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. Not really a programming book though.
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#44C# in Depth by Jon Skeet. Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform by Andrew Troelsen (there's a newer edition about .NET 4 which I haven't managed to read yet)
You read that 1300+ page tome in the manner described in the OP? I doubt it :)
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#45Most influential programming book - question answered on stackoverflow with some great answers:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m...
Not directly related, but here's a huge list of freely available programming books:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava...
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#46Programming Perl
Larry Wall is a mad genius, I don't care if anyone says otherwise. Plus its frequently laugh out loud funny.
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#47K&R's _C Programming Language_, because my father saw me start to write Schrodinger's equation in BASIC and said I should take a look.
Stroustrup's _The C++ Programming Language_, twice in a row, because I didn't want to be left out for not having taken Computer Science.
Butelhof's _Programming with Posix Threads_, because another book referenced its explanation of why Win32 threading had a bug because it could not, at the time, signal and wait on a mutex in an atomic way. There was something deep to find in those rowboats and bucket stories.
GoF's _Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software_, because when I complained to a mentor that I was struggling to organize a dozen scientist programmers, he handed it to me, laughing.
John Robbins, _Debugging Applications_, first edition, because it was the first time for me that code didn't have the disclaimer, "of course you should insert error-handling code here." Basic x86 assembly in one chapter!
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#48_The Little Schemer_, _The Seasoned Schemer_, _The Little MLer_. Those are made to be burned through, though. Probably not one sitting (many ideas need time to sink in), but only a couple sessions each. More recently, _Land of Lisp_. I already knew much of the material, but a very fun read. (Nice stickers, too!) I'd suggest this as a starting point for people new to Lisp, maybe even before _The Little Schemer_ (!). I…
CTM is fascinating to me. It was my first real exposure to the ideas of including different paradigms in a single language as appropriate.
I seriously considered quitting my job or taking a leave so that I could spend a couple of months with CTM and SICP without being distracted by work.
Glad to hear Land of Lisp is fun. It's on my TBR list.
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#49The best page-turner C# book I have ever read is "C# 4.0 in a Nutshell." This book comes from the guys who developed the awesome LINQPad. The book is filled with awesome nuggets and examples that were totally new to me. A lot of .NET books just read like msdn documentation. This is not one of them.
Re: Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?
#50For something fairly recent, I read Collective Intelligence cover to cover.