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Ask HN: Fun Tech Book Recommendations?
I'm currently reading Seven Databases in Seven Weeks [1] and finding it to be a really fun and interesting look at some tech I don't know much about. I'm wondering what other interesting books there are out there that focus less on teaching you all the technical details of a technology, and more on what makes it exciting and interesting.
What books do you suggest?
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13130963-seven-databases-in-seven-weeks
- Pete_D 7y agoMazes for Programmers http://www.mazesforprogrammers.com/ http://www.mazesforprogrammers.com/
- saboot 7y agoOh, I really like this one! Thank you, this looks like a very fun project.
- johnsonjo 7y agoThe same author Jamis Buck also recently came out with a book called The Ray Tracer Challenge [1]. He came to my University’s Game Dev class while I was there and he showed us all about maze algorithms and such. I thought one of the more interesting applications he brought up was over world (a.k.a. map/game world) generation using a maze algorithm. Which is awesome, because maze algorithms primarily try and create a single path between any two points which seems like a great property to have in a traversable game world. You could then choose to open up additional paths to your liking. [1]: https://pragprog.com/book/jbtracer/the-ray-tracer-challenge https://pragprog.com/book/jbtracer/the-ray-tracer-challenge
- hprotagonist 7y agohttps://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/1416507787 https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espiona...
- marmot777 7y agoThats an absolute classic that reads like a spy novel detective story, and, at times, Unix manual. Perfect.
- hprotagonist 7y agoyou'll never see a pack of benson and hedges and think of anything else again.
- djaque 7y agoExcellent book and I later realized that the author is the Klein bottle guy from numberphile.
- hprotagonist 7y agofunny, when i saw that i thought “hey the cuckoo’s egg guy is making klein bottles!” I’m so happy that he’s got himself a weird and cool life and hasn’t lost that exuberance at figuring esoteric stuff out.
- marttt 7y ago"Land of Lisp" by Conrad Barski: http://landoflisp.com http://landoflisp.com Oh, and his Haskell tutorial seems fun as well: http://lisperati.com/haskell/hasktut.pdf http://lisperati.com/haskell/hasktut.pdf
- anderspitman 7y agoCODE by Charles Petzold
- vertexmachina 7y agoFantastic book. I learned everything it covers in college, but the way it masterfully connects them all together is incredible and made connections in my brain that I didn't have before. There's also something satisfying about seeing incremental abstractions develop in an intuitive way.
- moretai 7y agoSide question: Do people read dense technical books for fun?
- fokinsean 7y agoI have a hard time making it through one not for fun.
- zarkov99 7y agoFor me a fun book has to be clearly written and present new (for me) ideas in a somewhat aesthetic way. Density I suppose is secondary. SICP is one of the best examples of the right balance, also Elements of Computing Systems.
- jolmg 7y agoThe dense, technical books I've read, I've done so because I wanted a deep understanding of whatever the book's about. I want that understanding because I believe it will somehow lead to good things, like being able to accomplish certain goals, or build stuff that will benefit me. I guess I may get something of a thrill when understanding certain things, and when later I'm able to build or do things I couldn't before. I guess that's fun. However, while I read for fun, I don't find reading fun. Even for story books, I read because the content is fun, not because visually parsing ink on paper is fun.
- commandlinefan 7y agoHm - maybe “fun” isn’t the right word, but I do find it mostly relaxing and pleasant to work through one as long as I’m not under any time pressure. I enjoyed TAOCP, for example, but I’ve definitely tried to read other books that I ended up giving up on, too.
- nikivi 7y agoNot sure about fun but I collected some book recommendations here: https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/books#recommendations https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/books#recommendations
- TallGuyShort 7y ago"Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension" is really fun, but it's not really tech, it's more just math. But I do a lot of work with scientific / numerical computing so some may group them together. In addition to math, it covers some interesting algorithms and fun ways to use spreadsheets for images, etc. I also really enjoy books about the tech used in the early space program. "Digital Apollo" is probably the one that makes the best light / easy reading.
- mateuszf 7y agoStructure and Interpretation of Computer Programs [1] [1]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html
- z5h 7y agoThere aren't many tech books I've read front to back and done pretty much all exercises. Exceptions include "The Little Schemer" and "The Seasoned Schemer". Importantly, they really up one's ability to write higher order functional (and pure functional) code leaning heavily on a style that would help in any functional language with tail call optimization.
- alexbilbie 7y agoI really enjoyed Writing an Interpreter in Go - https://interpreterbook.com/ https://interpreterbook.com/
- fu86 7y agoLOL (Let Over Lambda) is fun to read if you are not try to get the information in your head as fast as possible but rather read two or three pages a day very carefully and feel how your brain bends :) It is a hardcore technical book, but the language (Common Lisp) will not make you more money in 2020 or boost your new startup faster to market. So, read it to entertain your brain, it is worth it! https://letoverlambda.com/ https://letoverlambda.com/
- W-Stool 7y agoSoul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. Pulitzer Prize winner for non-fiction in 1982.
- save_ferris 7y agoHaven’t read Soul, but I read and very highly recommend one of his other books, Mountains beyond mountains. Incredible story about how much one person can impact the world.
- fred_is_fred 7y agoSeconded! This is a great read. No mode bit!
- ismitley 7y agoSomeone recommended this book on here a couple of weeks ago: https://bigmachine.io/products/the-imposters-handbook/ https://bigmachine.io/products/the-imposters-handbook/ This is a pretty neat book, that explains a lot of difficult concepts in technology in an easier to grasp manner. Things like P=NP and Big O get covered.
- vo2maxer 7y agoThank you, I just bought it :-)
- ArtWomb 7y agoCan recommend Ge Wang's Artful Design. Dense, photo-graphic-novel hybrid you can sample for hours. And low-key it's an encyclopedic History of Computer Music ;) https://artful.design/ https://artful.design/
- e9 7y agoSimple and fun to read + you build full game console and games for it. Has more practical knowledge than my full undergrad degree in Computer Engineering: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Video-Game-Console-Design/dp/0672328208 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Video-Game-Console-Design/dp/06...
- fred_is_fred 7y agoRacing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System Is a good read about the Atari 2600 and how the devs were able to fight within the limitations of 1970s and 1980s hardware to develop a gaming platform. https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies...
- plyptepe 7y ago"Learn You a Haskell" by Miran Lipovača: http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ "Learn You Some Erlang for great good" by Fred Hebert: https://learnyousomeerlang.com/ https://learnyousomeerlang.com/ "If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript" by Angus Croll: https://nostarch.com/hemingway https://nostarch.com/hemingway "Clojure for the Brave and True" by Daniel Higginbotham: https://www.braveclojure.com/clojure-for-the-brave-and-true/ https://www.braveclojure.com/clojure-for-the-brave-and-true/
- rubinelli 7y agoNo Starch Press has several books in a bundle for a few more days: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/data-science-no-starch-books https://www.humblebundle.com/books/data-science-no-starch-bo...
- gradschool 7y agoAnything by Gerald Weinberg is great. The technology is dated but the insights about working as a programmer are as relevant as ever, and the writing style is so enjoyable that my ex girlfriend who hates computers wanted to read it.
- marttt 7y ago+1, Weinberg's "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" [0] blessed me with the Systems Triumvirate: 1. Why do I see what I see? 2. Why do things stay the same? 3. Why do things change? I notice that I am very often using these questions to get a general grasp of something I don't understand. I think this book is considered a classic in the systems thinking field by many. 0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/583766.An_Introduction_to_General_Systems_Thinking https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/583766.An_Introduction_t...
- Buttons840 7y agoThe Little Typer
- aganame 7y agohttps://poignant.guide/ https://poignant.guide/
- bexsella 7y agoGame Engine Black Book: Doom - http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/ http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/ Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D - http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/ http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/ Fabien Sanglard Both are a fascinating read about hardware of the early 90's and how id Software took advantage of it to produce the results they did.
- aliswe 7y agoDon't know if it qualifies but I believe all Joel Spolskys books are fun and about tech. https://www.amazon.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers-Designers/dp/1590593898 https://www.amazon.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers...
- mihemihe 7y agoI had a really good time myself reading: The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business( https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262592 https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine... )
- sunstone 7y ago"The Signal and the Noise" might qualify. How to reason about systems of messy data.... like the weather for example. Very well written and entertaining.
- runninganyways 7y agoUnity in 24 hours is pretty cool. If you haven't done game development before this will open up a lot of possibilities for you and it's pretty fun. For example, not only will it show you how to create 2D and 3D games but it's pretty easy to turn a 3D game into a virtual reality game. But especially with virtual reality it doesn't have to be a game. So it's actually super practical in my opinion. https://www.amazon.com/Unity-Development-Hours-Teach-Yourself/dp/0134998138 https://www.amazon.com/Unity-Development-Hours-Teach-Yoursel...
- japhyr 7y agoRecently someone on HN recommended Unix: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan. I'm almost finished, and it's been a wonderful read. I love reading about the development of early programming languages and computing environments, but I was surprised to find how helpful it is for deepening my understanding of things I use every day. It's amazing to me that tools like grep, which I use without a second thought, were written in the 1960s and 1970s and the code behind them hasn't been changed all that much. https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/dp/1695978552/ https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/d...
- whb07 7y ago"Domain Modeling Made Functional" by Scott Wlaschin* Talk about a great book from cover to cover! Functional language evangelists are always ranting about types and their usefulness but fail to concretely convey how and why they can help. In this book Scott uses F#, but it applies to the broader range functional languages with a strong type system like Haskell, OCaml, Scala etc. The main thread of the book is building an ecommerce shop of and he begins at the base foundation what the "business" needs and how it can be modeled using the type system to carefully detail and build on the idea of making "illegal states unrepresentable". Highly recommended as it shows that the author has spent quite a bit of thought on conveying the useful ideas and being concise in explaining them. If you're new to the world of functional programming it does a great job of explaining the concepts and how to use them. For the experts, it specifically helps you be aware of better modeling around types. * https://pragprog.com/book/swdddf/domain-modeling-made-functional https://pragprog.com/book/swdddf/domain-modeling-made-functi...
- sindresv 7y agoThe 7-in-7 series is quite good. If that was your first book in that series i would recommend one of the other books in that series
- iillexial 7y ago"Mostly adequate guide to FP (in javascript)" I really enjoyed this one. https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide