5 ms·

Reddit's favorite programming books, from 3.5B comments

124 points by mgdo 9y ago

latenightcoding 9y ago
I'm sure the comments that were analyzed span many years: 2 Perl books and "Javascript: The Good Parts". The Art of Computer Programming, SICP and Introduction to algorithms are books that are commonly recommended but very few people have finished reading them.
- frugalmail 9y ago
  "Javascript: The Good Parts" is often shown as an example of just how bad JavaScript is because it's almost like a pocket edition.
ryandrake 9y ago
Solid list, but didn’t see any of Scott Meyers C++ books there, which is pretty surprising. Unlike other C++ books he tends to discuss the “why” along with the “what”. Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though!
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  > Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though! ...truly a tome from the abyss of obscurity.
  - tmccrmck 9y ago
    I can't tell if you're joking or not. If you read HN ten years ago, you would hear about SICP and Lisp constantly. Makes sense when you consider who made this site.
    - adamnemecek 9y ago
      I am, I know and I know.
  - huehehue 9y ago
    Seems super common and overhyped for the HN or /prog/ community, sure. Though, at 5 jobs over 3 years I haven't worked with a single person who's ever heard of SICP (or really any programming book for that matter). That includes security & big Data work at a Fortune 500. Quite few professional programmers (in the grand scheme of things) actually read programming books unless they're forced to.
    - adamnemecek 9y ago
      > Quite few professionals (in the grand scheme of things) actually read programming books unless they're forced to. FTFY. I agree, it's a shame but at the same time I understand.
      - y4mi 9y ago
        Why should a barber, mechanic or whatever be expected to read books about programming? Your fix makes the sentence easier to read, but only with a trade-off
setr 9y ago
Outside of the standard literature, those are some of the worst book covers I've ever seen. I refuse to look into this any further, as I don't trust reddit's taste anyways.
- mberning 9y ago
  “Reddit’s favorite books that very few have actually read”
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Literally judging books by their covers?
  - setr 9y ago
    I now go out of my way to do so, in most shopping. I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations. (In the sense that bad marketing implies bad product; good marketing can go either way) I mean just compare SICP and TAOCP covers to.. head first *; the latter look like self-help trash in b&n. Now O'Reilly, they've got covers you can really believe in
    - dna_polymerase 9y ago
      > I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations. This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. I can't even think of a comparison to further illustrate the stupidness of this sentence.
      - setr 9y ago
        Its the primary public facing function of a consumer-facing business. Its really a lot more difficult to argue that they shouldn't be judged on for it, when its specifically the main thing a business is trying to be judged on. The only immediate argument I can think of is that A) mass marketing is, and should be, frowned upon as a field, due to their use of extremely abusive strategies But that doesn't mean you shouldn't appreciate those who advertise well, and that all of marketing should be frowned upon B) marketing doesn't imply anything about the business But in a lot of cases, it does, because they're either in a market where they should (most consumer products), or they're in a market where there's no need to (free software, extremely cheap retailers. business to business, non-finalized products, middlemen like amazon, monoprice, etc). And if they're in the former, and they pull off a shitshow, I don't see how its reasonable to not judge them for it. There's a reason a large chunk of silicon valley puts such a massive strain on look&feel, UX, and all the shitty css frameworks, despite tech having the history of not giving the slightest shit. They've moved into a market where marketing does play a major role, and their success at it should be indicative of other successes. The backend stuff might not have to care (but, it turns out, they still do; just a different fashion), but any final product landing on your phone as an "app" certainly does care, and they should be judged for trying, and failing.
karmapolic 9y ago
i hope favorite does not imply best.
lerax 9y ago
Nice to see SICP growing.
unclesaamm 9y ago
I've read most of those books, and while I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading them, I don't think it's a great reading list either. You'll have to dig through a bit of cruft to get to the gems. Partly, it's that programming books have such low lifespan that the ones that still get recommended after a decade are often deeply assimilated into programmer culture already. For example, when I read Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer last year, I didn't find any of it to be interesting or remotely surprising - but I have been working at "agile" shops for a while, and perhaps those ideas were more revelatory when the books first came out. Here's a more fun reading list, based off my own tastes. Maybe some of these are on the list, but I found it hard to scroll past a certain point as well: - Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets - The Nature of Computation - The Little Schemer - Programming Pearls
- mlvljr 9y ago
  - More Programming Pearls - Holub on Patterns - anything by Steve Dewhurst ...
- tarsinge 9y ago
  The Little Schemer is indeed a fun read, and it's relatively short and digestible (compared to SICP which I have on my reading list but is daunting to me). If you are used to languages with imperative loops it will give you a nice perspective on recursion. Slightly related but I found myself using Reduce/Fold pattern a lot more in my everyday languages after reading it. Maybe following a tutorial in Erlang/Elixir might have the same effect, in addition to being more actual and practical, but also maybe less fun.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  The only “programming” books I ever found useful we’re essentially computer science books that cover the basis of computational theory and computing concepts. Anything that is more than a foundation is likely to be out of date by the time it’s published. This especially holds true for modern (FoTM) languages and concepts. So for the most part I stay away from practical books execept for the few ones that are set in stone. Beyond that “philosophy” books can also be useful even if they are outdated simply because it makes you think and exposes you to other points of view and concepts that you can draw on.
agumonkey 9y ago
needs more Aho books also no physics or maths ? oh and Loomis is everywhere in the drawing list, pretty cool
michaelsbradley 9y ago
Looking for recommendations on a "best" one or two books to read on SQL / PostgreSQL. Have any of you read Mastering PostgreSQL in Application Development[+]? I'm aware it's a fairly recent title, but I'm in need of something like that and am wondering if it's worth the money. The free sample chapter looks promising, I'll give it that. I'm working my way through the official PostgreSQL docs, and they're really good, but I find myself struggling a bit (a lot). I'm fluent in a handful of programming languages (dabbled in many), and appreciate abstractions like HOFs and monads, but I'm finding it difficult to express myself in SQL, and that tells me some underlying concepts haven't quite clicked. [+] https://masteringpostgresql.com/ https://masteringpostgresql.com/
- zzzzzzzza 9y ago
  I don't know about books, but I've found the website use the index luke to be helpful with sql in general. I've also heard good things about joe celko's books.

124 points by mgdo 9y ago

I'm sure the comments that were analyzed span many years: 2 Perl books and "Javascript: The Good Parts". The Art of Computer Programming, SICP and Introduction to algorithms are books that are commonly recommended but very few people have finished reading them.

frugalmail 9y ago
"Javascript: The Good Parts" is often shown as an example of just how bad JavaScript is because it's almost like a pocket edition.

ryandrake 9y ago

Solid list, but didn’t see any of Scott Meyers C++ books there, which is pretty surprising. Unlike other C++ books he tends to discuss the “why” along with the “what”. Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though!

adamnemecek 9y ago
> Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though! ...truly a tome from the abyss of obscurity.
- tmccrmck 9y ago
  I can't tell if you're joking or not. If you read HN ten years ago, you would hear about SICP and Lisp constantly. Makes sense when you consider who made this site.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    I am, I know and I know.
- huehehue 9y ago
  Seems super common and overhyped for the HN or /prog/ community, sure. Though, at 5 jobs over 3 years I haven't worked with a single person who's ever heard of SICP (or really any programming book for that matter). That includes security & big Data work at a Fortune 500. Quite few professional programmers (in the grand scheme of things) actually read programming books unless they're forced to.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    > Quite few professionals (in the grand scheme of things) actually read programming books unless they're forced to. FTFY. I agree, it's a shame but at the same time I understand.
    - y4mi 9y ago
      Why should a barber, mechanic or whatever be expected to read books about programming? Your fix makes the sentence easier to read, but only with a trade-off

setr 9y ago

Outside of the standard literature, those are some of the worst book covers I've ever seen. I refuse to look into this any further, as I don't trust reddit's taste anyways.

mberning 9y ago
“Reddit’s favorite books that very few have actually read”
ryandrake 9y ago
Literally judging books by their covers?
- setr 9y ago
  I now go out of my way to do so, in most shopping. I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations. (In the sense that bad marketing implies bad product; good marketing can go either way) I mean just compare SICP and TAOCP covers to.. head first *; the latter look like self-help trash in b&n. Now O'Reilly, they've got covers you can really believe in
  - dna_polymerase 9y ago
    > I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's operations. This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. I can't even think of a comparison to further illustrate the stupidness of this sentence.
    - setr 9y ago
      Its the primary public facing function of a consumer-facing business. Its really a lot more difficult to argue that they shouldn't be judged on for it, when its specifically the main thing a business is trying to be judged on. The only immediate argument I can think of is that A) mass marketing is, and should be, frowned upon as a field, due to their use of extremely abusive strategies But that doesn't mean you shouldn't appreciate those who advertise well, and that all of marketing should be frowned upon B) marketing doesn't imply anything about the business But in a lot of cases, it does, because they're either in a market where they should (most consumer products), or they're in a market where there's no need to (free software, extremely cheap retailers. business to business, non-finalized products, middlemen like amazon, monoprice, etc). And if they're in the former, and they pull off a shitshow, I don't see how its reasonable to not judge them for it. There's a reason a large chunk of silicon valley puts such a massive strain on look&feel, UX, and all the shitty css frameworks, despite tech having the history of not giving the slightest shit. They've moved into a market where marketing does play a major role, and their success at it should be indicative of other successes. The backend stuff might not have to care (but, it turns out, they still do; just a different fashion), but any final product landing on your phone as an "app" certainly does care, and they should be judged for trying, and failing.

karmapolic 9y ago

i hope favorite does not imply best.

lerax 9y ago

Nice to see SICP growing.

unclesaamm 9y ago

I've read most of those books, and while I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading them, I don't think it's a great reading list either. You'll have to dig through a bit of cruft to get to the gems. Partly, it's that programming books have such low lifespan that the ones that still get recommended after a decade are often deeply assimilated into programmer culture already. For example, when I read Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer last year, I didn't find any of it to be interesting or remotely surprising - but I have been working at "agile" shops for a while, and perhaps those ideas were more revelatory when the books first came out. Here's a more fun reading list, based off my own tastes. Maybe some of these are on the list, but I found it hard to scroll past a certain point as well: - Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets - The Nature of Computation - The Little Schemer - Programming Pearls

mlvljr 9y ago
- More Programming Pearls - Holub on Patterns - anything by Steve Dewhurst ...
tarsinge 9y ago
The Little Schemer is indeed a fun read, and it's relatively short and digestible (compared to SICP which I have on my reading list but is daunting to me). If you are used to languages with imperative loops it will give you a nice perspective on recursion. Slightly related but I found myself using Reduce/Fold pattern a lot more in my everyday languages after reading it. Maybe following a tutorial in Erlang/Elixir might have the same effect, in addition to being more actual and practical, but also maybe less fun.
dogma1138 9y ago
The only “programming” books I ever found useful we’re essentially computer science books that cover the basis of computational theory and computing concepts. Anything that is more than a foundation is likely to be out of date by the time it’s published. This especially holds true for modern (FoTM) languages and concepts. So for the most part I stay away from practical books execept for the few ones that are set in stone. Beyond that “philosophy” books can also be useful even if they are outdated simply because it makes you think and exposes you to other points of view and concepts that you can draw on.

agumonkey 9y ago

needs more Aho books also no physics or maths ? oh and Loomis is everywhere in the drawing list, pretty cool

michaelsbradley 9y ago

Looking for recommendations on a "best" one or two books to read on SQL / PostgreSQL. Have any of you read Mastering PostgreSQL in Application Development[+]? I'm aware it's a fairly recent title, but I'm in need of something like that and am wondering if it's worth the money. The free sample chapter looks promising, I'll give it that. I'm working my way through the official PostgreSQL docs, and they're really good, but I find myself struggling a bit (a lot). I'm fluent in a handful of programming languages (dabbled in many), and appreciate abstractions like HOFs and monads, but I'm finding it difficult to express myself in SQL, and that tells me some underlying concepts haven't quite clicked. [+] https://masteringpostgresql.com/ https://masteringpostgresql.com/

zzzzzzzza 9y ago
I don't know about books, but I've found the website use the index luke to be helpful with sql in general. I've also heard good things about joe celko's books.