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Programming books you might want to consider reading

danluu.com

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Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#51

Post by gautamnarula »

hal9000xp wrote: post #31

Upvoted for recommendation of "Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani; Algorithms". Unlike TAOCP and CLRS it's actually readable in realistic amount of time. This book is also very good at explaining theoretical computer science. In particular - NP completeness. Official copy is available at home page of Umesh Vazirani at berkeley.edu: 0: Prologue - https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap0.... 1: Al…

Personally, my favorite algorithms/data structures books is Algorithms 4th ed by Sedgwick and Wayne. It does a great job explaining the material from a theoretical standpoint, but also focuses on practical application in addressing real problems, and every algorithm comes with real, working Java code that in some cases is even superior to the implementations in the standard Java libraries.

And it perfectly accompanies Sedgwick's free algorithms course on Coursera.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#53

Post by nickpsecurity »

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.

I agree. Especially on the Windows vs Linux thing.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#54

Post by baddox »

oldmanjay wrote: post #41
edmccard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Baseball players waste 9 of every 10 swings on misses. And swinging a bat is one of the skills baseball players need to use for their job. The comment you replied to was talking about skills that are not going to be used every day. So I don't think your analogy is very useful.

Also, people who get paid to play baseball never have a batting average that low

Batting average will be higher than the percentage of swings that don't miss.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#55

Post by throwaway7645 »

yellowapple wrote: post #23

A good list for sure; I'll be adding a few of these to my reading list (and a couple, like "Higher Order Perl", already are). "I find algorithms to be useful in the same way I find math to be useful" I'd hope so :)

A pretty cool book I'd like to see translated into other languages.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#56

Post by ianai »

throwaway98237 wrote: post #47
peruvian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the weekend? I can't do it. Even if I forced myself to read for 6 hours Saturday and Sunday I'd forget everything during the weekdays. An hour or so every day is much better and realistic.

Great point about forgetting the material. If you really want to learn something you need to review it more than once, and you need to encounter it in more than one environment / context (unless you're a genius, maybe). It's science, yo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition & context based learning --> https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word

I learned that from math literature. To really solidify a topic you need to express it in as many ways and "different angles" as possible. It's related to the more ways you've seen a problem solved the better your understanding.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#57

Post by Zombieball »

sbov wrote: post #34
fao_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't believe in knowledge for the sake of enjoying the perspective that more knowledge gives you?

I do, but with a kid my time is now limited. Unused knowledge has this habit of being forgotten. It turns out to be a terrible waste, at least from my POV.

There is a good video from Niel deGrasse Tyson talking about learning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=utedyJ7QRBs

His argument is learning is never a waste of time, even if you don't ever use and forget everything you studied. The simple act of learning is beneficial, it helps build connections in your brain. You develop skills that can be applied to other problems.

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#58

Post by perlgeek »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #55
yellowapple wrote: post #23

A good list for sure; I'll be adding a few of these to my reading list (and a couple, like "Higher Order Perl", already are). "I find algorithms to be useful in the same way I find math to be useful" I'd hope so :)

A pretty cool book I'd like to see translated into other languages.

There's an unofficial companion that has the examples translated to Javascript: http://interglacial.com/hoj/hoj.html

Same for Ruby: http://graysoftinc.com/higher-order-ruby

Re: Programming books you might want to consider reading

#59

Post by jakub_h »

ronald_raygun wrote: post #37

I'm really happy to see the books on game theory and auction theory on there.

Coincidentally, this very book on auction theory was suggested to me by a fellow faculty member about three months ago. I guess I really ought to find some time to read it!
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