8 ms·

Must Read CS Books For Self Self-Taught Programmers

251 points by stefanve 16y ago

In light of past discusion about Self-Taught Programmers vs CS-Educated Programmers: What are must read CS books (or other resources) that help you in your daily work? (so I don't mean code complete or head first design patterns) I'm a Self-taught programmer and I think I'm missing some knowledge of algoritmes and discrete math. but perhaps there are other great subjects/books (compilers etc) EDIT: Thanks everybody for the great suggestions EDIT 2: The list so far (unsorted) http://sharetext.org/YUE

wicknicks 16y ago
Programming is more about thinking in a certain way than algorithms or data structures (those are the tools). You should check out the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs -- I found it "enlightening"
- stuartd 16y ago
  SICP is also available as a series of videos of the lectures at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/ http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma... - very enlightening to this self-taught programmer
kamechan 16y ago
functional stuff is making a comeback. haskell can be daunting in its pure-ness sometimes, requiring monads for seemingly anything useful. but it's a wonderful language/lifestyle choice. this online book broaches the subject pretty well: http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters
- arethuza 16y ago
  I really liked "The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages" by Simon Peyton Jones, which is available online: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/slpj-book-1987/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers...
- danieldk 16y ago
  Plus learning a language from another paradigm, e.g. functional or logics programming, can also be insightful to your 'safe areas'[1]: - After learning functional programming I realized how much of my programs do just mapping or folding over data. You start to spot the cases where this is not immediately obvious after some FP practice. - After learning logics programming, I realized how much of my programs do a poor man's version of backtracking. Maybe one of those languages is so much fun that you'll eventually change your 'lifestyle'. E.g. I use Haskell in many cases where I'd previously use Python or C. [1] Of course, it doesn't always come natural. C++ STL does provide maps and folds, but since pre-C++0x doesn't have lambdas, using them requires more effort.
- T-R 16y ago
  To steal words from a comment earlier today, Haskell has a very steep but very rewarding learning curve. It'll reinforce some concepts from math, and lead you toward writing code in a manner that's considered good practice in other languages - such that it's generally maintainable and testable. Similarly, if you're familiar with Design Patterns, you'll see that a lot of patterns are attempts to implement functional concepts in OO languages. That said, as a fan of Haskell I'm definitely biased, and a lot of that can be said for other functional languages as well. "Real World Haskell" is also very good, but probably not the best place to start if you haven't written in a functional language before.
  - kamechan 16y ago
    +1 on real world haskell, which is here: http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ definitely a lot less hand-holding than learnyouahaskell, but they complement each other pretty well.
- T-R 16y ago
  If you want to go down the Functional rabbit hole more, "Purely Functional Data Structures" by Chris Okasaki would be a good next step. There's a book and a paper - from what I hear, the paper is just Okasaki's original work, whereas the book is a more complete coverage of the field.
samdalton 16y ago
While not strictly a CS book, "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter definitely has strong roots in the area. It's not a text book, nor anything even close, however, there is a reasonable amount of mathematics and programming language design which make it educational as well as inspirational (particularly formal logic systems, around which the premise of the book is built). The book is somewhat life changing, in the questions that it asks. You might find yourself thinking about things differently, such as what it is to be conscious, can we ever achieve artificial intelligence, is there such a thing as fate, how was J.S. Bach able to produce such stunning compositions, etc. It's quite heavy going however, but there's a slightly more succinct, terse version which he wrote a few years ago, called "I Am a Strange Loop". This book takes the point he was trying to make in the first book, and expands on it while adding clarification. It does lack a lot of story that the original contained, so it's not a complete replacement however. While I think of it, there's also Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Gagne and Galvin - http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Update/dp/0471250600 http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Upda.... It's an extremely detailed look at how operating systems work, down to the lowest level, and it explains a large number of things that we interact with on a daily basis.
- arethuza 16y ago
  I think GEB is an excellent books because it basically demonstrates in a reasonable accessible way that CS can be about rather more than "how to write programs".
- ericbrunstad 16y ago
  I fail to see how you can claim that Operating Systems Concepts is an "extremely detailed look at how operating systems work." I read every page of this book. Much of the information is outdated. For instance, much time is spent on tape drives and related devices, as well as methods of using computers that are now updated (FIFO job queues, etc). Some interesting algorithms are covered. However, many of the algorithms have little relation to the techniques used in practice. For example, most of the locking techniques presented in the book are not used on x86. The information about paging and segmentation is overly high-level and is not sufficiently deep to guide an implementor. I'd recommend skipping this book and instead reading the Intel x86 documentation. It was vastly more useful to me while writing my own operating system than anything I read in Operating System Concepts.
T-R 16y ago
It really depends on what you feel you're missing and what you're hoping to do (definitions of "daily work" vary widely). If you're looking to get up on theory by doing your own program of sorts, you could do worse than start with these (in roughly this order): Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein The Art of Assembly Language - Hyde a digital logic book (not sure which is most recommended), and an architecture book (see reply by tftfmacedo) Modern Operating Systems - Tanenbaum Introduction to the Theory of Computation - Sipser Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools - Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman (a.k.a. "Dragon Book") Programming Language Pragmatics - Scott A database design book (one that covers Relational Algebra, not just a book on SQL), and maybe a book on Networks. Also, Roy Fielding's paper on REST is both academic and applicable (and more approachable than you'd expect of a Ph.D paper). If you want to go all the way, an undergraduate program usually also has Calculus, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, and Statistics. Some schools would also require Physics and Differential Equations. I'm sure I'm missing some topics, too, particularly electives. If you can get through those and the associated problem sets, you'll have a better foundation than most.
- shadowsun7 16y ago
  Also, a worthy introduction to the field would be The New Turing Omnibus by A.K.Dewdney. In fact, I'd recommend this book first, for it gives self-taught programmers a taste of nearly everything in computer science (and thus equips them to know which branch they'd like to pursue next).
- tftfmacedo 16y ago
  I'd recommend this one on architecture: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach - Hennessy and Patterson
- T-R 16y ago
  So far the comments in this thread cover Functional (SICP, Haskell books), Logic (Prolog Books), and Procedural/OO (Almost everything else) Languages, so I figure I should add a reference for Stack/Concatenative Languages: Thinking Forth - Brodie
tmachinecharmer 16y ago
The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold
danieldk 16y ago
The standard for computational grammars and parsers in natural language processing is: Prolog and Natural-Language Analysis - Fernando C. N. Pereira and Stuart M. Shieber The PDF is available from the publisher: http://www.mtome.com/Publications/PNLA/prolog-digital.pdf http://www.mtome.com/Publications/PNLA/prolog-digital.pdf It also serves as a great introduction to Prolog and logics programming.
- T-R 16y ago
  I've heard "The Art of Prolog" is good, too... a quick glance at Amazon shows it to be ridiculously expensive, though.
  - danieldk 16y ago
    I haven't read "The Art of Prolog". But if you want to write correct and fast Prolog, reading "The Craft of Prolog" by Richard O'Keefe is a must.
  - tom_b 16y ago
    Hit up your local college library. Mine has a copy of it and it has been there every time I've gone by to check it out.
  - deong 16y ago
    It is quite good, and the hardcover version is beautiful as well -- good enough to be a coffee table book. But yeah, $250 is pretty steep.
    - ionfish 16y ago
      You should be able to get it cheaper than that—I did. AbeBooks shows it available for $40 or so, plus p&p.
  - GregBuchholz 16y ago
    Get the first edition for $3.82: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0262192500/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1302123222&sr=8-1&condition=used http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0262192500/ref=tmm_hr... ...I got mine for like $2, and I've been very happy with it.
svag 16y ago
You can find some resources in a similar discussion here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297289 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297289 You can find some resources, mostly books, in the following links http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m...
jdj 16y ago
One book that I would suggest to anyone is Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation - HMU. It is very approachable and presents some very interesting topics (so you won't write a regex for matching HTML and will learn what P vs NP means). On a more practical side, I think that a must read for machine learning is Tom Mitchell - Machine Learning . Another book that from what I've heard is easier to digest is Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques.
- deong 16y ago
  The Mitchell book is definitely showing its age these days. It's not terrible, but anyone thinking of buying it should be aware that it is a broad but shallow tour of machine learning as it stood 15 years ago, and machine learning as a field has changed significantly since then. Most notably, there has been something of a Bayesian revolution that Mitchell basically ignores (understandable since the book predates it). Don't take this as a recommendation, because I haven't read it, but Stephen Marsland's Machine Learning book appears from a glance at the table of contents to be a much more modern attempt to provide the same type of coverage as Mitchell. But again, I can't speak to its quality. Chris Bishop's Pattern Recognition book is also very good, but it's not the same sort of book. Bishop is exhaustively deep on the narrower range of ML that he covers, but you won't get the same sort of coverage of the wider view of the field.
  - jdj 16y ago
    Also Bishop is much harder to read, so for a first introduction I think that Mitchell is good. There are some chapters on theoretical learning that you can skip, but I do think that it is good for a first overview of the field. This is the first time I hear about Marsland's book, so I can't comment on that.
nikcub 16y ago
I am also self-taught, although I dropped out of University two years into a CompSci/Engineering double major, so I will recommend some resources to you that helped me immensely. Each of these books has an associated MIT course with lecture video, notes, etc. available online. First is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs[1], which you can read online, and the associated course at MIT, which is 6.001[2] Second is the famous 'Dragon Book', Compilers: Principals, Techniques and Tools[3] and the associated course which is 6.035[4] Extras would be the Python book 'How to think like a Computer Scientist'[5]. MIT course 6.00[6] uses the book as a reference, and the courseware is again available online. Other than that - the usual suspects on learning C (K&R), UNIX (TAOUP[7]), the bash shell along with grep, sed, awk, more algorithms(CLRS[8]), functional programming and machine learning. Take your time, it takes years to build the relevant experience and knowledge and you are never done. I love the MIT courses. Work and learn at your own rate. I feel that it is important to implement all the code yourself even if it looks easy in a lecture - there are little things you pick up as you write algorithms out. Even though I had worked through SICP I still watched all the lectures again and implemented all the examples with benchmarks and unit tests. I usually set aside one day on the weekend to work on study, and usually an extra evening or two mid-week to read papers and books. Once you get into the routine it is great. It might be the best approach to set yourself a timetable and weekly schedule, just like in UNI (ie. every Saturday plus Tuesday and Thursday nights) and work through the MIT courseware and associated books in order (6.00, 6.001, 6.035). The more advanced MIT courseware is an excellent bonus. [1] http://xrl.us/sicp http://xrl.us/sicp [2] http://xrl.us/6001 http://xrl.us/6001 [3] http://xrl.us/dragonbook http://xrl.us/dragonbook [4] http://xrl.us/6035 http://xrl.us/6035 [5] http://xrl.us/thinkcs http://xrl.us/thinkcs [6] http://xrl.us/6000 http://xrl.us/6000 [7] http://xrl.us/artunix http://xrl.us/artunix [8] http://xrl.us/clrs http://xrl.us/clrs
- drp 16y ago
  That's a great collection of books, but when I see a list of link-shortened URLs to what context dictates are book web pages, I automatically assume they are affiliate links. Please just use the real URLs so people know what they're getting into. For the record the shortened URLs are not affiliate links, and I'm not trying to make any statement about affiliate links. Here are the original URLs: [1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html [2] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [3] http://dragonbook.stanford.edu/ http://dragonbook.stanford.edu/ [4] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-035-computer-language-engineering-sma-5502-fall-2005/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [5] http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ [6] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/index.htm http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [7] http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ [8] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262032937/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262032937/
dytrivedi 16y ago
Godel, Escher, Bach SICP Art of Computer Programming C Programming Language Introduction to Algorithms Land of Lisp -- Extracted from my wishlist - http://flipkart.com/wishlist/dhavaltrivedi http://flipkart.com/wishlist/dhavaltrivedi
mbesto 16y ago
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist - Python Version http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/html/ http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/html/
dragonquest 16y ago
Over the years I've found the following CS books helpful, but only a minority in my day-to-day work. Your mileage may vary, as would the utility of these to you. Algorithms -> Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Wirth (worth its weight in gold if you can get past the Pascal syntax) OS -> Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz et al (The dinosaur book) CS Theory -> Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by Hopcroft, Ullman Programming Languages Theory -> Programming languages: design and implementation by Pratt et al Database Theory -> Database Design by Wiederhold Architecture -> Structured Computer Organization by Andrew S Tanenbaum
known 16y ago
I'd start at http://www.kohala.com/start/ http://www.kohala.com/start/
Tinned_Tuna 16y ago
I can't remember who said it, but "If you can write a compiler, you can write any program." Hence, I'd get compiler books. Modern Compiler Implementation in Standard ML, SICP has a couple of sections on compilation, there's a computational theory book that I don't have on hand which would be useful to this end too.
- arethuza 16y ago
  I happened to be looking at Tony 'Quicksort' Hoare's page at Microsoft Research and I noticed this: "His research goal was to understand why operating systems were so much more difficult than compilers" http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/thoare/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/thoare/
netaustin 16y ago
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler helped me make the jump from small systems built for myself to large, sophisticated systems built for others. The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks really helped me learn to think about large projects from a personnel and planning perspective. There are some ideas there that have become part of the CS canon; "no silver bullet" and the slightly sexist but accurate metaphor for throwing more people at an overdue project, "nine women can't make a baby in one month." The Mythical Man Month was written in 1975, but it holds up remarkably well.
stevelosh 16y ago
My vote goes for The Little Schemer. It's short (but don't read it all in one sitting), entertaining, and will teach you some important concepts. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262560992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302092891&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/02...
- charlieconroy 16y ago
  This book like no other just makes me smile. I read this right after I graduated and started my "real" learning in programming and math. The intermission page list books on logic and set theory. FYI: it is the first book in a "trilogy" -- but your next book could be either of the other two (their only prereq is The Little Schemer). Listed below: Reasoned Schemer: http://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262562146/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302106654&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/... Seasoned Schemer: http://www.amazon.com/Seasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/026256100X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302106654&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Seasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/...
mynegation 16y ago
Previous HN thread on a similar topic: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2262527 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2262527
cema 16y ago
FYI, you have listed several books twice (SICP, Intro to Algorithms).
stefanve 16y ago
Updated list: (still unsorted) http://sharetext.org/YVA http://sharetext.org/YVA
gharbad 16y ago
Knuth's Art of Computer Programming Aside from that, there are typically only 1-2 extremely well regarded books in any given area. If you're going to be doing something specific, grab the appropriate book. eg: Compilers - Dragon Book AI - Russel/Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach Oh.. everyone needs a whiteboard, as well - they're quite useful
metra 16y ago
Along with the usual classics, I highly recommend Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron of Carnegie Mellon. The authors wrote it after teaching a class on the subject. It's extremely readable and gives you an excellent introduction of machine level code, processor architecture and memory as well as a solid foundation of higher level concepts including networking and concurrency. If you're considering programming as a career, I'd say this book (or something similar, probably spread across multiple books) is a must-read. It's used by CMU, Stanford, Caltech, UIUC, Harvard and dozens of other schools. http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-2nd/dp/0136108040 http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspecti...
rohitarondekar 16y ago
Can anybody recommend a good book or resource for learning discreet mathematics?
- quacker 16y ago
  Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications by Rosen
iqster 16y ago
Peopleware - This isn't a programming book, but I feel that every professional programmer (and certainly every manager) should have read it. It is about the human aspect of programming. Programmers are people too!
garethdown44 16y ago
Programming Paradigms - stanford course, available on iTunesU.
thekevan 16y ago
I'd like to hear HN's opinion on the quality of this list: http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_for_the_selftaught_computer/ http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_...
jollyjerry 16y ago
3 books that I helped me tie my daily work back to more abstract computer science concepts are: - Ruby Best Practices - Javascript, the Good Parts - Higher Order Perl I recommend picking these up after you've done work in the languages they're about. They assume that you're already comfortable with the language, but then go back to show how that language uses CS concepts. They highlight how functional programming, and other classic introductory CS concepts, but stays practical. None of them are long reads, and there are clear take aways that make you better at programming.
dlo 16y ago
What I often find to be the case is that a course in college only loosely follows the assigned book. Professors like to navigate through the subject material in a very personal way, which will often not be the way that it is covered in the book... if it is covered in the book at all! For this experience, I would suggest going through lecture notes and, when necessary, supplementing them with a book. While books are certainly valuable in someone's education, I think we are forgetting about the projects. It is very instructive, not to mention very satisfying, to implement an operating system, a compiler, or a transport layer (that interoperates with real TCP!). Moreso than reading the books of a college course, I recommend doing its projects. To get started, I recommend the Pintos operating system, designed for Stanford's operating systems course, CS 140, traditionally thought to one of the more difficult programming courses in their undergraduate curriculum. Some links. http://www.scs.stanford.edu/11wi-cs140/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/11wi-cs140/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/05au-cs240c/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/05au-cs240c/
saurabhsharan 16y ago
Two suggestions: Elements of Programming (by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones) takes a mathematical approach to programming. Since its only prerequisite is a basic understanding of high school algebra, the book is very accessible and easy to follow. Digital Design and Computer Architecture (by David Harris and Sarah Harris) is a great book on computer architecture that starts with digital logic design (i.e. gates and transistors) and ends with a subset of the MIPS instruction set. Though, it probably won't help you much in 'daily work'.
rshepherd 16y ago
This response is late that I doubt will even be read by the poster, but I will throw this out there anyway. I was (am?) a self-taught programmer, I guess I am transitioning away of that label. I am a bit less than halfway through the MSCS program at the moment. I really cannot recommend it enough. I think I was a pretty good software engineer prior to getting some formal education, but I cannot tell you how often in class the light from heaven just shines right down.. "oh so that's why x is y". If you enjoy the work, its a real pleasure (albeit a painful amount of work at times). So finally I get to the point. I can see that you have already received a lot of good recommendations. I think most of them are quite good. However, I have a couple of observations about specific books. Intro to Algorithms - Cormen etc. If you feel you need a discrete math course, then this book is probably not a good place to start with algorithms. It is a rigorous treatment of the subject. However, if you lack mathematical sophistication, this book can be tough. I aced my discrete course prior to taking an algorithms course taught with this book, and I struggled mightily to get an A-. I found the proofs in the book difficult to understand on many occasions. Modern Operating Systems - Tannenbaum This book is very easy to understand and provided me with so many "A HA!" moments. A real pleasure. I am not sure what your current work is, but the only pre-req on this book is a modest amount of C/C++ programming. The reason I say this is because I found that having that, this book allowed me to finally understand what is happening from compile time down to the CPU at runtime. A really rewarding journey.
cpeterso 16y ago
Eric Evans' "Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software" blew my mind. Domain modeling gets to the heart of object-oriented programming. The book is a bit academic and long-winded, but very deep and complete. This is an immediate classic and required reading for any serious engineer.

251 points by stefanve 16y ago

wicknicks 16y ago

Programming is more about thinking in a certain way than algorithms or data structures (those are the tools). You should check out the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs -- I found it "enlightening"

stuartd 16y ago
SICP is also available as a series of videos of the lectures at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/ http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma... - very enlightening to this self-taught programmer

kamechan 16y ago

functional stuff is making a comeback. haskell can be daunting in its pure-ness sometimes, requiring monads for seemingly anything useful. but it's a wonderful language/lifestyle choice. this online book broaches the subject pretty well: http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters

arethuza 16y ago
I really liked "The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages" by Simon Peyton Jones, which is available online: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/slpj-book-1987/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers...
danieldk 16y ago
Plus learning a language from another paradigm, e.g. functional or logics programming, can also be insightful to your 'safe areas'[1]: - After learning functional programming I realized how much of my programs do just mapping or folding over data. You start to spot the cases where this is not immediately obvious after some FP practice. - After learning logics programming, I realized how much of my programs do a poor man's version of backtracking. Maybe one of those languages is so much fun that you'll eventually change your 'lifestyle'. E.g. I use Haskell in many cases where I'd previously use Python or C. [1] Of course, it doesn't always come natural. C++ STL does provide maps and folds, but since pre-C++0x doesn't have lambdas, using them requires more effort.
T-R 16y ago
To steal words from a comment earlier today, Haskell has a very steep but very rewarding learning curve. It'll reinforce some concepts from math, and lead you toward writing code in a manner that's considered good practice in other languages - such that it's generally maintainable and testable. Similarly, if you're familiar with Design Patterns, you'll see that a lot of patterns are attempts to implement functional concepts in OO languages. That said, as a fan of Haskell I'm definitely biased, and a lot of that can be said for other functional languages as well. "Real World Haskell" is also very good, but probably not the best place to start if you haven't written in a functional language before.
- kamechan 16y ago
  +1 on real world haskell, which is here: http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ definitely a lot less hand-holding than learnyouahaskell, but they complement each other pretty well.
T-R 16y ago
If you want to go down the Functional rabbit hole more, "Purely Functional Data Structures" by Chris Okasaki would be a good next step. There's a book and a paper - from what I hear, the paper is just Okasaki's original work, whereas the book is a more complete coverage of the field.

samdalton 16y ago

While not strictly a CS book, "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter definitely has strong roots in the area. It's not a text book, nor anything even close, however, there is a reasonable amount of mathematics and programming language design which make it educational as well as inspirational (particularly formal logic systems, around which the premise of the book is built). The book is somewhat life changing, in the questions that it asks. You might find yourself thinking about things differently, such as what it is to be conscious, can we ever achieve artificial intelligence, is there such a thing as fate, how was J.S. Bach able to produce such stunning compositions, etc. It's quite heavy going however, but there's a slightly more succinct, terse version which he wrote a few years ago, called "I Am a Strange Loop". This book takes the point he was trying to make in the first book, and expands on it while adding clarification. It does lack a lot of story that the original contained, so it's not a complete replacement however. While I think of it, there's also Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Gagne and Galvin - http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Update/dp/0471250600 http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Upda.... It's an extremely detailed look at how operating systems work, down to the lowest level, and it explains a large number of things that we interact with on a daily basis.

arethuza 16y ago
I think GEB is an excellent books because it basically demonstrates in a reasonable accessible way that CS can be about rather more than "how to write programs".
ericbrunstad 16y ago
I fail to see how you can claim that Operating Systems Concepts is an "extremely detailed look at how operating systems work." I read every page of this book. Much of the information is outdated. For instance, much time is spent on tape drives and related devices, as well as methods of using computers that are now updated (FIFO job queues, etc). Some interesting algorithms are covered. However, many of the algorithms have little relation to the techniques used in practice. For example, most of the locking techniques presented in the book are not used on x86. The information about paging and segmentation is overly high-level and is not sufficiently deep to guide an implementor. I'd recommend skipping this book and instead reading the Intel x86 documentation. It was vastly more useful to me while writing my own operating system than anything I read in Operating System Concepts.

T-R 16y ago

It really depends on what you feel you're missing and what you're hoping to do (definitions of "daily work" vary widely). If you're looking to get up on theory by doing your own program of sorts, you could do worse than start with these (in roughly this order): Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein The Art of Assembly Language - Hyde a digital logic book (not sure which is most recommended), and an architecture book (see reply by tftfmacedo) Modern Operating Systems - Tanenbaum Introduction to the Theory of Computation - Sipser Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools - Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman (a.k.a. "Dragon Book") Programming Language Pragmatics - Scott A database design book (one that covers Relational Algebra, not just a book on SQL), and maybe a book on Networks. Also, Roy Fielding's paper on REST is both academic and applicable (and more approachable than you'd expect of a Ph.D paper). If you want to go all the way, an undergraduate program usually also has Calculus, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, and Statistics. Some schools would also require Physics and Differential Equations. I'm sure I'm missing some topics, too, particularly electives. If you can get through those and the associated problem sets, you'll have a better foundation than most.

shadowsun7 16y ago
Also, a worthy introduction to the field would be The New Turing Omnibus by A.K.Dewdney. In fact, I'd recommend this book first, for it gives self-taught programmers a taste of nearly everything in computer science (and thus equips them to know which branch they'd like to pursue next).
tftfmacedo 16y ago
I'd recommend this one on architecture: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach - Hennessy and Patterson
T-R 16y ago
So far the comments in this thread cover Functional (SICP, Haskell books), Logic (Prolog Books), and Procedural/OO (Almost everything else) Languages, so I figure I should add a reference for Stack/Concatenative Languages: Thinking Forth - Brodie

tmachinecharmer 16y ago

The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold

danieldk 16y ago

The standard for computational grammars and parsers in natural language processing is: Prolog and Natural-Language Analysis - Fernando C. N. Pereira and Stuart M. Shieber The PDF is available from the publisher: http://www.mtome.com/Publications/PNLA/prolog-digital.pdf http://www.mtome.com/Publications/PNLA/prolog-digital.pdf It also serves as a great introduction to Prolog and logics programming.

T-R 16y ago
I've heard "The Art of Prolog" is good, too... a quick glance at Amazon shows it to be ridiculously expensive, though.
- danieldk 16y ago
  I haven't read "The Art of Prolog". But if you want to write correct and fast Prolog, reading "The Craft of Prolog" by Richard O'Keefe is a must.
- tom_b 16y ago
  Hit up your local college library. Mine has a copy of it and it has been there every time I've gone by to check it out.
- deong 16y ago
  It is quite good, and the hardcover version is beautiful as well -- good enough to be a coffee table book. But yeah, $250 is pretty steep.
  - ionfish 16y ago
    You should be able to get it cheaper than that—I did. AbeBooks shows it available for $40 or so, plus p&p.
- GregBuchholz 16y ago
  Get the first edition for $3.82: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0262192500/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1302123222&sr=8-1&condition=used http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0262192500/ref=tmm_hr... ...I got mine for like $2, and I've been very happy with it.

svag 16y ago

You can find some resources in a similar discussion here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297289 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=297289 You can find some resources, mostly books, in the following links http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m...

jdj 16y ago

One book that I would suggest to anyone is Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation - HMU. It is very approachable and presents some very interesting topics (so you won't write a regex for matching HTML and will learn what P vs NP means). On a more practical side, I think that a must read for machine learning is Tom Mitchell - Machine Learning . Another book that from what I've heard is easier to digest is Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques.

deong 16y ago
The Mitchell book is definitely showing its age these days. It's not terrible, but anyone thinking of buying it should be aware that it is a broad but shallow tour of machine learning as it stood 15 years ago, and machine learning as a field has changed significantly since then. Most notably, there has been something of a Bayesian revolution that Mitchell basically ignores (understandable since the book predates it). Don't take this as a recommendation, because I haven't read it, but Stephen Marsland's Machine Learning book appears from a glance at the table of contents to be a much more modern attempt to provide the same type of coverage as Mitchell. But again, I can't speak to its quality. Chris Bishop's Pattern Recognition book is also very good, but it's not the same sort of book. Bishop is exhaustively deep on the narrower range of ML that he covers, but you won't get the same sort of coverage of the wider view of the field.
- jdj 16y ago
  Also Bishop is much harder to read, so for a first introduction I think that Mitchell is good. There are some chapters on theoretical learning that you can skip, but I do think that it is good for a first overview of the field. This is the first time I hear about Marsland's book, so I can't comment on that.

nikcub 16y ago

I am also self-taught, although I dropped out of University two years into a CompSci/Engineering double major, so I will recommend some resources to you that helped me immensely. Each of these books has an associated MIT course with lecture video, notes, etc. available online. First is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs[1], which you can read online, and the associated course at MIT, which is 6.001[2] Second is the famous 'Dragon Book', Compilers: Principals, Techniques and Tools[3] and the associated course which is 6.035[4] Extras would be the Python book 'How to think like a Computer Scientist'[5]. MIT course 6.00[6] uses the book as a reference, and the courseware is again available online. Other than that - the usual suspects on learning C (K&R), UNIX (TAOUP[7]), the bash shell along with grep, sed, awk, more algorithms(CLRS[8]), functional programming and machine learning. Take your time, it takes years to build the relevant experience and knowledge and you are never done. I love the MIT courses. Work and learn at your own rate. I feel that it is important to implement all the code yourself even if it looks easy in a lecture - there are little things you pick up as you write algorithms out. Even though I had worked through SICP I still watched all the lectures again and implemented all the examples with benchmarks and unit tests. I usually set aside one day on the weekend to work on study, and usually an extra evening or two mid-week to read papers and books. Once you get into the routine it is great. It might be the best approach to set yourself a timetable and weekly schedule, just like in UNI (ie. every Saturday plus Tuesday and Thursday nights) and work through the MIT courseware and associated books in order (6.00, 6.001, 6.035). The more advanced MIT courseware is an excellent bonus. [1] http://xrl.us/sicp http://xrl.us/sicp [2] http://xrl.us/6001 http://xrl.us/6001 [3] http://xrl.us/dragonbook http://xrl.us/dragonbook [4] http://xrl.us/6035 http://xrl.us/6035 [5] http://xrl.us/thinkcs http://xrl.us/thinkcs [6] http://xrl.us/6000 http://xrl.us/6000 [7] http://xrl.us/artunix http://xrl.us/artunix [8] http://xrl.us/clrs http://xrl.us/clrs

drp 16y ago
That's a great collection of books, but when I see a list of link-shortened URLs to what context dictates are book web pages, I automatically assume they are affiliate links. Please just use the real URLs so people know what they're getting into. For the record the shortened URLs are not affiliate links, and I'm not trying to make any statement about affiliate links. Here are the original URLs: [1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html [2] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [3] http://dragonbook.stanford.edu/ http://dragonbook.stanford.edu/ [4] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-035-computer-language-engineering-sma-5502-fall-2005/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [5] http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ [6] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/index.htm http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [7] http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ [8] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262032937/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262032937/

dytrivedi 16y ago

Godel, Escher, Bach SICP Art of Computer Programming C Programming Language Introduction to Algorithms Land of Lisp -- Extracted from my wishlist - http://flipkart.com/wishlist/dhavaltrivedi http://flipkart.com/wishlist/dhavaltrivedi

mbesto 16y ago

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist - Python Version http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/html/ http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/html/

dragonquest 16y ago

Over the years I've found the following CS books helpful, but only a minority in my day-to-day work. Your mileage may vary, as would the utility of these to you. Algorithms -> Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Wirth (worth its weight in gold if you can get past the Pascal syntax) OS -> Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz et al (The dinosaur book) CS Theory -> Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by Hopcroft, Ullman Programming Languages Theory -> Programming languages: design and implementation by Pratt et al Database Theory -> Database Design by Wiederhold Architecture -> Structured Computer Organization by Andrew S Tanenbaum

known 16y ago

I'd start at http://www.kohala.com/start/ http://www.kohala.com/start/

Tinned_Tuna 16y ago

I can't remember who said it, but "If you can write a compiler, you can write any program." Hence, I'd get compiler books. Modern Compiler Implementation in Standard ML, SICP has a couple of sections on compilation, there's a computational theory book that I don't have on hand which would be useful to this end too.

arethuza 16y ago
I happened to be looking at Tony 'Quicksort' Hoare's page at Microsoft Research and I noticed this: "His research goal was to understand why operating systems were so much more difficult than compilers" http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/thoare/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/thoare/

netaustin 16y ago

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler helped me make the jump from small systems built for myself to large, sophisticated systems built for others. The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks really helped me learn to think about large projects from a personnel and planning perspective. There are some ideas there that have become part of the CS canon; "no silver bullet" and the slightly sexist but accurate metaphor for throwing more people at an overdue project, "nine women can't make a baby in one month." The Mythical Man Month was written in 1975, but it holds up remarkably well.

stevelosh 16y ago

My vote goes for The Little Schemer. It's short (but don't read it all in one sitting), entertaining, and will teach you some important concepts. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262560992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302092891&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/02...

charlieconroy 16y ago
This book like no other just makes me smile. I read this right after I graduated and started my "real" learning in programming and math. The intermission page list books on logic and set theory. FYI: it is the first book in a "trilogy" -- but your next book could be either of the other two (their only prereq is The Little Schemer). Listed below: Reasoned Schemer: http://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262562146/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302106654&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/Reasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/... Seasoned Schemer: http://www.amazon.com/Seasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/026256100X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302106654&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Seasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/...

mynegation 16y ago

Previous HN thread on a similar topic: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2262527 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2262527

cema 16y ago

FYI, you have listed several books twice (SICP, Intro to Algorithms).

stefanve 16y ago

Updated list: (still unsorted) http://sharetext.org/YVA http://sharetext.org/YVA

gharbad 16y ago

Knuth's Art of Computer Programming Aside from that, there are typically only 1-2 extremely well regarded books in any given area. If you're going to be doing something specific, grab the appropriate book. eg: Compilers - Dragon Book AI - Russel/Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach Oh.. everyone needs a whiteboard, as well - they're quite useful

metra 16y ago

Along with the usual classics, I highly recommend Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron of Carnegie Mellon. The authors wrote it after teaching a class on the subject. It's extremely readable and gives you an excellent introduction of machine level code, processor architecture and memory as well as a solid foundation of higher level concepts including networking and concurrency. If you're considering programming as a career, I'd say this book (or something similar, probably spread across multiple books) is a must-read. It's used by CMU, Stanford, Caltech, UIUC, Harvard and dozens of other schools. http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-2nd/dp/0136108040 http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspecti...

rohitarondekar 16y ago

Can anybody recommend a good book or resource for learning discreet mathematics?

quacker 16y ago
Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications by Rosen

iqster 16y ago

Peopleware - This isn't a programming book, but I feel that every professional programmer (and certainly every manager) should have read it. It is about the human aspect of programming. Programmers are people too!

garethdown44 16y ago

Programming Paradigms - stanford course, available on iTunesU.

thekevan 16y ago

I'd like to hear HN's opinion on the quality of this list: http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_for_the_selftaught_computer/ http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_...

jollyjerry 16y ago

3 books that I helped me tie my daily work back to more abstract computer science concepts are: - Ruby Best Practices - Javascript, the Good Parts - Higher Order Perl I recommend picking these up after you've done work in the languages they're about. They assume that you're already comfortable with the language, but then go back to show how that language uses CS concepts. They highlight how functional programming, and other classic introductory CS concepts, but stays practical. None of them are long reads, and there are clear take aways that make you better at programming.

dlo 16y ago

What I often find to be the case is that a course in college only loosely follows the assigned book. Professors like to navigate through the subject material in a very personal way, which will often not be the way that it is covered in the book... if it is covered in the book at all! For this experience, I would suggest going through lecture notes and, when necessary, supplementing them with a book. While books are certainly valuable in someone's education, I think we are forgetting about the projects. It is very instructive, not to mention very satisfying, to implement an operating system, a compiler, or a transport layer (that interoperates with real TCP!). Moreso than reading the books of a college course, I recommend doing its projects. To get started, I recommend the Pintos operating system, designed for Stanford's operating systems course, CS 140, traditionally thought to one of the more difficult programming courses in their undergraduate curriculum. Some links. http://www.scs.stanford.edu/11wi-cs140/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/11wi-cs140/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/05au-cs240c/ http://www.scs.stanford.edu/05au-cs240c/

saurabhsharan 16y ago

Two suggestions: Elements of Programming (by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones) takes a mathematical approach to programming. Since its only prerequisite is a basic understanding of high school algebra, the book is very accessible and easy to follow. Digital Design and Computer Architecture (by David Harris and Sarah Harris) is a great book on computer architecture that starts with digital logic design (i.e. gates and transistors) and ends with a subset of the MIPS instruction set. Though, it probably won't help you much in 'daily work'.

rshepherd 16y ago

This response is late that I doubt will even be read by the poster, but I will throw this out there anyway. I was (am?) a self-taught programmer, I guess I am transitioning away of that label. I am a bit less than halfway through the MSCS program at the moment. I really cannot recommend it enough. I think I was a pretty good software engineer prior to getting some formal education, but I cannot tell you how often in class the light from heaven just shines right down.. "oh so that's why x is y". If you enjoy the work, its a real pleasure (albeit a painful amount of work at times). So finally I get to the point. I can see that you have already received a lot of good recommendations. I think most of them are quite good. However, I have a couple of observations about specific books. Intro to Algorithms - Cormen etc. If you feel you need a discrete math course, then this book is probably not a good place to start with algorithms. It is a rigorous treatment of the subject. However, if you lack mathematical sophistication, this book can be tough. I aced my discrete course prior to taking an algorithms course taught with this book, and I struggled mightily to get an A-. I found the proofs in the book difficult to understand on many occasions. Modern Operating Systems - Tannenbaum This book is very easy to understand and provided me with so many "A HA!" moments. A real pleasure. I am not sure what your current work is, but the only pre-req on this book is a modest amount of C/C++ programming. The reason I say this is because I found that having that, this book allowed me to finally understand what is happening from compile time down to the CPU at runtime. A really rewarding journey.

cpeterso 16y ago

Eric Evans' "Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software" blew my mind. Domain modeling gets to the heart of object-oriented programming. The book is a bit academic and long-winded, but very deep and complete. This is an immediate classic and required reading for any serious engineer.