4 ms·
Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?
I'll start it off:
- O'Reilly's Python in a Nutshell
- A 12" PB (I use my old PB as a more capable "kimble" and for quick SSHing into my servers)
- And to preempt the half-dozen comments suggesting them: Founders at Work & Hackers and Painters
- kirubakaran 19y agoI would just put a thumb drive and a sticky that says isohunt.com
- marcus 19y agoCall me old fashioned but I like my dead-tree products, it's an entirely different feeling to read a physical book than a PDF. Although I usually have soft copies of all my favorite books, so I can search them quickly.
- Glimjaur 19y agoI would add "Getting Real" by 37Signals, for starters.
- davidw 19y agoIt's not bad, but it's free on the web. And in terms of "getting real", they could stand to make a real book out of it by getting an ISBN number for it with all the money they made off of people throwing their money at them. And of course I'll add the obligatory mention of Squeezed Books, which is more or less based on business books I've bought and enjoyed (although there are also others like Good to Great that I wouldn't recommend).
- tjr 19y ago- New Hacker's Dictionary (print version is nice for browsing) - The Little Schemer (or the whole series, if you really like them) - The Art of Computer Programming
- marcus 19y agoProgramming Collective Intelligence - O'Reilly Media Toby Segaran Art of the start - Guy Kawasaki The art of war - Sun Tzu
- raju 19y agoHuh! Currently I have Programming Collective Intelligence and Art of the start on mine. Just started reading Prog Coll Intell. So far, I am impressed.
- klocksib 19y agoHmmm, here's a list of books I really like: Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++ by Frenck The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System by McKusick/Neville-Neil Learning GNU Emacs by Cameron, et al. Practical Common Lisp by Seibel The C Programming Language by K&R The C++ Programming Language Stroustrup The Design and Analysis of Algorithms by Leviten Assembly Language Programming for the IBM PC Family by Jones Essays/Collections: Hackers & Painters by PG Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think by Feynman The Cathedral & The Bazaar by Raymond Novels: The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder Where Wizards Stay up Late by Hafner
- imp 19y agoAnother vote for "Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman" by Feynman
- tomjen 19y agoMake friends and influence people -- will help you understand why people react as strange as they do.
- andreyf 19y agoI skimmed that book and it all seemed to boil down to "be nice". Am I the only one who finds that ironic?
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- kingnothing 19y agoI haven't read the whole thing, but another major point in the book is to subtly mimic the other person's body language.
- xirium 19y agoI'd summurise as "Trust. Be friendly. Take genuine concern for your clients point of view." These are pre-requisites for "win-win" situations.
- snowbird122 19y agoOne of the most interesting parts of the book is that it claims you should "never criticize" another person. It says that every person can always justify their actions in their own mind and all criticism is taken negatively. As an example, even mass murderers have been interviewed justifying their actions. I tend to agree with this philosophy.
- pg 19y agoMore specific than that: see things from the other person's point of view.
- JayNeely 19y ago- Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson - Copywriting (Teach Yourself series), by J. Jonathan Gabay - The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz
- andreyf 19y agoSchwartz gave a Google talk on the book: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200
- moog 19y agoThe Feynman Lectures on Physics The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad A Latin/English dictionary for new company names
- Tichy 19y agoSome plants for better air quality.
- jey 19y agoIt really depends what sort of hacker they are. There's a sort of hacker you buy a copy of "Pro JavaScript Techniques" for, a sort you buy the Dragon Book for, and another sort who you give a copy of TAOCP.
- DarrenStuart 19y agodesigning the obvious - a common sense approach to web application design by Robert Hoekman Jr The New New Thing Masters of Doom (story of id software, great story) Smart Start-ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities steven levy's Hackers and crypto also for the history.
- zenlinux 19y agoI love Designing the Obvious - it's a great book on interface design and usability, and focuses on web applications. Very relevant to this community.
- watmough 19y agoProgrammers at Work, by Susan Lammers. It opened up many many ideas to me, including flying, writing software for people, why simple software is harder to write than complicated software, and gave me some indication of what 'being smart' really means. I really highly recommend this book.
- danw 19y agoRecommended: * Everyware: Dawning of the age of ubiquitous computing * Never Eat Alone A few biographies of people you admire too. My favourite is "Buckminster Fuller's Universe". Has anyone got a recommendation for a good biography on Walt Disney?
- henning 19y agoHarry Potter, Goosebumps, choose your own adventure stories... Oh, wait, I have to look like I'm really smart. Um, Knuth.
- konsl 19y agoUpcoming: "High Performance MySQL" (O'Reilly) (New Edition) "Advanced PHP Programming: Developing Large-scale Web Applications With PHP 5" (Developer's Library) by George Schlossnagle Released: "Building Scalable Websites" (O'Reilly) by Cal Henderson "Scalable Internet Architectures" (Developer's Library) by Theo Schlossnagle
- cbthiess 19y agoGetting Things Done, by David Allen anything by Edward Tufte The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil Dip, by Seth Godin
- NoBSWebDesign 19y agoMade to Stick I've won several marketing competitions, an elevator pitch contest, and made countless connections with others, using ideas from this book.
- spydez 19y ago"Lord of the Rings" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", because seriously... you need to read something fun every once in a while.
- jraines 19y agoGetting Real (37 Signals) Programming Ruby (Pragmatic Programmers) Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers) Javascript: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly) a good text on database design & normalization, performance issues, and SQL something to teach *nix basics, which I don't have but could have used
- slackerIII 19y agoBoyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (for thoughts on competition) Managing Gigabytes (if you are doing anything related to search) Writing Solid Code (especially if you are using C/C++) Most of the research papers that come out of OSDI/SOSP: Dynamo, BigTable, Sawzall, GFS, Chubby, etc
- randrews 19y agoI second the Boyd suggestion. One of the best books I've ever read.
- kintro 19y agoPeopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister Build to Last by James C. Collins , Jerry I. Porras
- xirium 19y agoI've not read Peopleware but I've read Why Does Software Cost So Much? by Tom DeMarco and Slack by Tom DeMarco. The former focuses on technical issues and the sunken cost of software. The latter focuses on the agility of organisations. Tom DeMarco started as a programmer and subsequently became a consultant increasingly focusing less on technical issues and more on business issues. Therefore, reading his books in order would be most relevant as your start-up develops.
- ojbyrne 19y agoO' Reilly's "Dynamic HTML" is probably my most well-used book.
- andreyf 19y agoWow, surprised nobody mentioned this: GEB. Overrated in some circles, but definitely should be "on your bookshelf". Hofstadter's other books, also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Books http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Books
- bprater 19y agoCode by Charles Petzold is an awesome hacking book. It takes you from flipping a light switch, thru simple circuits up to assembly language. It's beautiful!
- amohr 19y agoThe Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman I know he's gotten some flak lately for ripping on 37signals, but this book seriously changed how I look at the world... especially doors. Freakonomics - Steven Levitt Good for understanding the value of taking another perspective.
- hbien 19y agohttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2325563013_d62ca9cde5.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2325563013_d62ca9cde5.jp... I'm a fan of "The Pragmatic Programmer". Other books I thought were a good read: getting things done, 4 hour work week, and founders at work. I've also got all 6 seasons of 24 on my bookshelf =/, probably not the most productive times of my life.
- vikas5678 19y agoHa ha, finally a 24 fan! Yeah I have all the 6 seasons with me too :).
- semigeek 19y agoThe 4-Hour Work Week
- mosburger 19y ago-Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary -The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman -UNIX in a Nutshell (O'Reilly book written by Arnold Robbins)
- edw519 19y agoFounders at Work by Jessica Livingston Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham I am NOT recommending these because I am an avid hacker.news participant. I became an avid hacker.news participant AFTER reading these books.
- jorgeortiz85 19y agoIntroduction to Algorithms - Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein (CLRS)
- pius 19y agoBut if you're old school, you'll have already had the old version (CLR) on your bookshelf collecting dust. ;)
- curi 19y agoThe Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hoftstadter Karl Popper's books (too many to list) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
- pjf 19y ago"Silence on the Wire" by Michal Zalewski
- corentin 19y agoYes. Some ideas expressed in this book are really creative.
- corentin 19y ago* "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. The first chapters are a great introduction to cryptography, but I found the few following chapters presenting cryptographic protocols mind-blowing. Some of them are so simple yet very clever. * Political economy essays by Frédéric Bastiat ( http://bastiat.org http://bastiat.org ) were truly enlightening for me.
- matstc 19y agoI'm surprised no one mentioned SICP. I would also add: - The Little Schemer - Linux in a Nutshell - Unix power tools
- wallflower 19y ago"Becoming a Technical Leader" by Gerald Weinberg Unconventional perspective on management "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand One of the best books about designing long-term architectures. Excellent coffee table book "Envisioning Information" by Edward Tufte "Walt Disney" by Neal Gabler Excellent biography of maybe the greatest imagineer ever "The Art of Software Testing" by Glenford J. Myers ~100 page classic. The central premise is that the successful test is one that finds bugs/issues not one that doesn't.
- ijoshua 19y agoPrincipia Discordia; or How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her
- domnit 19y agoI haven't gotten through all of it, but I really like the New Turing Omnibus, by A.K. Dewdney. It's about computer science, not how to program, so it would be interesting to non-hackers, too. Even if you are familiar with all of its topics, it can serve as a reference and clarifying tool for CS concepts.
- mindplunge 19y agowhat's a 'book'?
- dmoney 19y agoAn early form of web site where all pages were static, and hyperlinks had to be operated manually.
- victorkryukov 19y agoParadigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig (an excellent book even if you don't want to become a Lisp programmer)
- ujeezy 19y agoSteve McConnell's Code Complete (2nd Ed is the copy I have) -- it seems like every second page I've read lays to rest some tiny unanswered question I've had in the back of my head since I started programming.
- jsmcgd 19y ago"First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently". I know it has a cheap title but it there is plenty of merit in it. The Gallup organization carried out a massive survey of various business units in an attempt to discover commonalities between the successful units. The results showed that there are essentially 12 things that must be true about a unit in order for it to be successful. Its a fun read if nothing else. It contains a lot of counter convention logic that would be right at home in one of PG's essays.
- fogus 19y agoOff the top of my head: - Soul of a New Machine - The Cuckoo's Egg - Revolution in the Valley - Fire in the Valley - Compilers by Sethi, Ullman, Aho - Masters of Doom - iWoz - Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing - Crypto - Code - The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The Man Who Knew Infinity - ANSI Common LISP Most of the books above are recommended because once reading them you will have an uncontrollable urge to immediately create something brilliant. You will not be able to stop yourself. -m
- andrewf 19y agoDeMarco & Lister (yes, the Peopleware guys) - Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects
- jonvaughan 19y agoOf course there is: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...
- earle 19y agoSNOWCRASH for heavens sake.
- christefano 19y agoQuicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Drive it Forever by Robert Sikorsky.