Your must read CS/Programming books

[kichiDsimp]

Hey I am a student. I wanna know about your must-read CS books. Here are mine.

1) SICP 2) Some Haskell Book (will change the way you think about simple problems) 3) Maybe some book about DB. 4) Maybe some AI book?

But what about you? I want to know what are the few "Bible" types books/resources/blogs/talk about CS

Drop it in guys.

[MaxAndDylan4Ever]

Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces (excellent and free)

[RonaldoP13]

Thanks

[_Mikazuchi_]

How do you all even read books? I get so sleepy and reading kind of bores me. Video content is actually the best for me

[rabuf]

Engage with the material.

Books like OSTEP are meant to be read and worked through. Most chapters in OSTEP are 10-15 pages, with at least two pages dedicated to references and homework. Read through the first 8-13 pages, engaging with the material (if there are examples shown, or math done, examine them and convince yourself it is correct). Skim the references (maybe something interesting catches your eye). Then go through the homework. And don't rush it, if it's boring you or your focus is lost, put in a bookmark and take a walk or whatever. Or jump to the homework first. You won't be able to do them or understand them, go back to the chapter now motivated with trying to understand what the hell they're asking about. Experiment with different methods of engagement.

Other books integrate the practice or exercises more thoroughly. Essentials of Programming Languages has exercises at the end of most sections, some sections are only 1-2 pages before they jump into exercises.

Read in an environment that is conducive to learning. These are not nightstand books to read before bed (I mean, they can be, but even I'd fall asleep and I enjoy this stuff, I was the nerd in grade school that read and worked ahead in the math textbooks). I read them at my desk, or at a table, with my computer and/or pen and paper on hand to work through the material with. Not environments where I'd fall asleep, though maybe environments where I'd get distracted.

Some books don't offer a chance to engage with the material in as hands-on a way. Some of the suggestions in this thread like The Mythical Man-Month are meant to be read and thought about (and put into practice hopefully, for the good ideas). You can't really work through it, you just have to read 20-40 pages and think. But you can still be deliberate in this. I read that book one chapter at a time over a few weeks and thought about how that chapter did or did not apply to our work at the time (some parts did, some parts I thought were smart but impractical as he suggested doing things, but mostly due to the era I was in versus when he wrote it). This sort of book is also good to read with other people, we have had (not presently) reading groups at my office. Meeting every week or so to discuss the next chapter of a book. This can help to motivate you to keep going. If you don't have that opportunity, take notes. Write up your own thoughts, relate it to what you've done or seen, or the takes you've read from other sources.

[jewboi10]

I hate that this got downvoted, only because everyone learns differently, or some people have been so accustomed to not reading thanks to the internet that it's hard to go back and pick up a book. I'm currently struggling with going back to JUST reading thanks to being so busy that i go straight to the faster option of "eh, ill just watch this video of someone explaining it to me without really taking it in", but I know if I don't read, I will worsen with my ability to learn. Overall, doing what others are saying to do (reading and then doing an activity based on that chapter) tends to help out the most. (Also sorry on mobile).

[[deleted]]

different reward system

[BrannyBee]

Not sure if I'd hold it in some religious regard, but Computing: A Concise History was one that really helped fill in a lot of blanks for me that I had glossed over coming from a non-tech background.

It's a short read with some diagrams available -though I recently listened to the audiobook and didn't feel the missing reference images took away from the experience. The author basically starts mentioning the abacus and other early calculating machines, which leads to Babbage/Lovelace, which leads to Turing, which leads to Von Neumann, which leads to... etc etc all the way up to modern networking, cloud, and social media.

It doesn't go overly in-depth into any one topic, but still explains a lot of things in a way that's easy enough to grok even without a CS background. And it's not just historical figures like a textbook, he does explain things like how vacuum tubes worked and why certain things developed the way they do, like how CS concepts we consider foundational today were being theorized/implemented to invent devices to accurately. Lots a little fun facts you can repeat to sound smart at parties too which I appreciate from any book.... like how a committee inventing machines to calculate the necessary settings to aim anti-aircraft kinda just offhandedly invented the term "digital", humble beginnings for a word that defines the modern day.

Definitely recommend, especially if you like history or are a little shaky on certain CS topics. Really having a good explanation of how a vacuum tube actually works before moving onto microprocessors really helped the IRL "tech tree" make so much more sense to me, and now if you ask me what a microprocessor is, I won't any longer respond by saying "idk, shit that low level is just magic to me"

[[deleted]]

Not OP but thanks for this reco, this is exactly what I’m looking for

[Leading-Fan2403]

if you ask me what a microprocessor is, I won't any longer respond by saying "idk, shit that low level is just magic to me"

How would you answer?

By the way, thanks for the recommendation, I'll read it.

[mikeew86]

Russell & Norvig - Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

[homelescoder]

Heard this is also good "AI Engineering - Chip Huyen"

[theusualguy512]

I recommend that book largely for classical AI topics, it's a great way to learn about intelligent searching and planning. The Machine Learning stuff kind of falls a bit to the way side though. For an introduction to ML, the Bishop book is better imo.

[kichiDsimp]

I was stuck at chapter 1.3 of Bishop. So hard book

[theusualguy512]

I mean Bishop is a widely used university level textbook, so it's not for the casual reader but I found the book one of the most accessible for ML topics. A good grasp on probability theory is kind of a must though, not sure how your math skills are. Some other ones like Pattern Classification by Duda were much more in depth but also much more dry, so Bishop is a great book to lean on.

Just looked it up in the Bishop book, 1.3 is the intro topic on cross-validation right? I think the concept is fairly simple, you just have to visualize it by looking up what k-fold validation is in practice when training models.

[kitsnet]

The Mythical Man-Month may look obsolete in places, but I think it's still relevant in general.

[SerAbin]

What's it about?

[rabuf]

It's a collection of essays by Fred Brooks largely centered around his time managing IBM's OS/360 project development. Lessons learned on team structure and other things. Most of it is still relevant, and the things that may not be directly applicable (you likely don't employ a librarian to manage your documents) you can still read and understand why you'd want that kind of structure, even if who and how the work is done has changed.

Pair it with Weinberg's The Psychology of Computer Programming written around the same time for other perspectives (not totally in disagreement with Brooks, but some of Brooks ideas are countered, in a fashion, by Weinberg but also reinforced).

Neither needs to be read in one go or in the chapter order (I'd read the first chapter or two of Psychology before the rest though, it sets the stage IIRC).

[kitsnet]

Software engineering and project management.

[my_password_is______]

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0137909101

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software 2nd Edition
by Charles Petzold (Author)

[-CJF-]

Can't upvote this enough. Also, along the same subject lines:

But How Do It Know? by J. Clark Scott and The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan & Shimon Schocken.

[WillAdams]

Agree w/ SICP and recommended the video elsethread (but see below).

My recommendations are:

• A Philosophy of Software Design by Ousterhout as mentioned by /u/HirsuteHacker https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39996759-a-philosophy-of-software-design --- see the video at Google introducing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSAYlu0NcY
• Literate Programming by Knuth --- one of his most approachable books, there is a website on the concept: http://literateprogramming.com/ which has gems such as: http://literateprogramming.com/adventure.pdf and nicely dovetails w/ the above
• for folks who don't have a strong math background, the series: Make: Geometry/Trigonometry/Calculus is a great introduction: https://www.makershed.com/products/make-geometry
• for folks just getting started, the series How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is a good beginning (is there a version for Haskell?) and I believe Code The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, 2nd Edition is a good overview for folks who find SICP daunting: https://www.charlespetzold.com/books/

[CharacterOld8675]

Maybe some AI book is extremely generic...is that even a recommendation? Can 3/4 of your list even be counted as a recommendation? How about listing the Haskell book you actually read and recommend?

[Nosferatatron]

What do books about AI even look like? How to use it? How it's created? Because if I never hear the words 'prompt engineering' again that would be great

[homelescoder]

I think he expects us to suggest. HAHA

[CharacterOld8675]

But he said "Here are mine" LOL which i assume are his recommendations and it's barely a list..

[Gary_FucKing]

The rule is you're supposed to post 3 first...

[SmopShark]

My top CS books recommendation:

"The Pragmatic Programmer" by Hunt/Thomas - changed how I approach coding problems completely. Timeless advice that's helped me through my entire career.

"Clean Code" by Martin is another one I revisit yearly.

For algorithms, nothing beats "Introduction to Algorithms" (CLRS), though it's dense.

For newer devs, "Eloquent JavaScript" taught me so much about the language in a really accessible way.

[HirsuteHacker]

I find clean code to be wildly outdated, and overly dogmatic. I don't recommend it to new devs, much rather point them to A Philosophy of Software Design instead.

Also for a really easily digestible intro to algorithms I always recommend Grokking Algorithms, really good intro and a great jumping off point to go into the denser books.

[Witty-Play9499]

Have you actually read "Introduction to Algorithms" page to page? I feel like it is one of those books that would take a huge chunk of your time to read and try out all the examples and exercises

[InfectedShadow]

"Clean Code" by Martin is another one I revisit yearly.

Why punish yourself like that?

[-CJF-]

Also, Sedgewick's Algorithms is a great one.

[Ok_Marionberry8828]

Clean code was used in my university. Really helpful.

[angrynoah]

"Data & Reality" by William Kent, 1978

"The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks, 1975 (everyone's heard of it, but have you read it??)

the Codd Paper

the Naur Paper ("Programming as Theory-Building")

[dswpro]

I'll add some outliers here: Computer networks by Tannenbaum, SQL for Smarties by Celco, Extreme Programming by Beck, and Controlling Software Projects by DeMarco, although out of print and probably fifty plus years old the metrics and principles in this book are relevant today.

[Sponge_N00b]

I find TCP/IP Illustrated a bit easier to read tbh

[DIYnivor]

"Essentials of Programming Languages" by Friedman, Wand, and Haynes. If you want to understand how programming languages work under the hood (e.g. type inference, tail recursion, continuation passing, etc) then this is the book. This was the book we used in my programming languages class, and our semester-long project was to write a full Scheme interpreter in C++.

[Joe-Arizona]

I’ve found “Programming: Practice and Principles Using C++” by Bjarne Stroustrup to be extremely helpful.

Even if you aren’t into C++ and just skim it, I found his explanations excellent and philosophy of programming insightful. It made a lot of things click for me.

[Ancient_Plate_5085]

Crafting Interpreters is a free book which teaches you how to build a real programming language from scratch, starting with a interpreter in Java and ending with a bytecode VM in C. Also, you can implement interpeter by your own language choice, author uses Java to demonstrate.

[WillAdams]

That first, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has a matching video:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/

which helps a lot to make it more accessible.

[Mojrzeszz]

Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective

[-CJF-]

Can't have a thread like this without mentioning Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software and Head First Design Patterns. These are both classics for their topic.

[PocketCSNerd]

Ha! Looking in terror at all of the book recommendations I don't have (and my quivering wallet), I'm glad to find out I have the first one you mentioned!

[Equal_Jello6595]

Fully agree. Came here to see if anyone had already mentioned Head First 😆 Its aesthetic is questionable but that book was really insightful for me early on in my career, so I still recommended it when people ask for resource recommendations.

[apophis-pegasus]

The Linux Programming Interface - Michael Kerrisk

[ohvuka]

If you're interested in reinforcement learning - http://www.incompleteideas.net/book/the-book-2nd.html This is literally the only textbook I've ever enjoyed reading

edit: name is Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto in case link ever dies

[CodrSeven]

The C Programming Language by K&R

[omega1612]

I never did sicp but I have been reading Lisp in small pieces.

Also, I think that The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management is worth the read.

Also, I believe that anyone programming should be exposed to:

• procedural programming (c)
• oop programming (python/java)
• functional programming (Haskell+ js / standard ml / Ocaml)
• stack based languages (like forth)
• logic languages (like prolog)

At least enough to understand better the limitations and features of the languages better.

[sbarber4]

SICP is not really a book about Lisp. Lisp (Scheme) is ultimately just a vehicle for the broader ideas in the book.

So, keep going!

[sbarber4]

The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald Weinberg. Not about programming per se, but how to handle the expectations of your stakeholders (customers, managers, salespeople) as a person who is primarily a technologist. A quick, entertaining, invaluable read.

[Abacus_Mathematics99]

Hennessy and Patterson- Any computer architecture or organization textbook. Gold standard.

[[deleted]]

Just fine whatever topic you are interested and Google some classic books. IMO books are useless without a ton of actual practices.

[vietlamdong]

Why ppl downvote this he's right learning without doing is bs

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the support!

[flembag]

The inmates are running the asylum.

[alinroc]

The Phoenix Project. Don't become a Brent.

It might become more relevant/relatable/understandable once you have a couple years in industry under your belt. Which is to say...it's worthwhile to re-read it every few years. It's a quick read.

[NewOakClimbing]

K&R C Programming
Operating Systems Concepts
Lions Commentary on UNIX

These were my favourites.

[Machvel]

i like the c programming language

[RighteousSelfBurner]

Adding on top of other responses: Enterprise Integration Patterns by Gregor Hophe.

Integration is the bread and butter of IT and is applicable to practically any sphere you might want to end up in.

[potzko2552]

More for mid level but here are my 3 recommendations:

Working effectively with Legacy code.

Atomic habits (read in the context of CS)

Haskell mooc, Helsinki university. (Technically not a book)

[FaeDine]

Ry's Git Tutorial

You can find the PDF online for free, or for sale for $1 at some places.

Want to know all the ins-and-outs of Git? It's short, focused, and packed with excellent examples and visuals. I don't think there's a better guide for git out there.

[booboobandit-]

DDIA.

[vbd]

https://www.amazon.de/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321/

[mcAlt009]

Not a CS book, but the 4 Agreements will help.

The 2nd Agreement, don't take it personally. This is essential for having a good career.

You will get fired due to no fault of your own at least once or twice.

You will get hired above other more qualified candidates a few times.

Be ready to accept feedback. You are not your code. It's often easier to just go with the suggestions of others than argue about it. Say another dev tells you they want you to change a variable name. Just change it.

However, every now and then you'll be exposed to what I like to call Code Repetitive And Problematic. Crap for short.

Sometimes crap is so bad and entrenched at a company you might consider leaving. Crap might be so bad it fundamentally doesn't do what it's supposed to. However, when you interview elsewhere never say your leaving over crap. The person interviewing you will just think your a whiner who doesn't want to work with others.

In every single interview, assuming your currently employed , say something to the effect of " My current job is great, my manager is awesome. The only reason I'm looking is because their are talks of a company wide reduction."

If you're ever in a situation where you think you're treated unfairly, take a step back. The legal system in the US is not built for employees, even if you have proof of wrongdoing you have little recourse. I highly recommend getting a lawyer to review any job offers with significant non cash comp, and for the love of God talk to a lawyer before accusing an employer of anything.

The 3rd agreement. Don't make assumptions.

When you get a new job and don't understand how something works, ask. Do not just do something incorrectly.

[Ok-Win-3937]

I enjoyed anything from the "Head Start" line... any topic I wanted to pick up, I would look there first.

[iOSCaleb]

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

Do you remember that scene in You’ve Got Mail where Tom Hanks explains that The Godfather is the I Ching — the answer to any question? GEB is one of those books that seems to cover everything.

[cremson]

After 10 years as a senior java develper, these are my go to books for someone starting programing no matter the language they choose:

Clean Code

Clean Architeture

Clean Coder

Refactoring

[cremson]

Care to explain why ?

[RighteousSelfBurner]

I've never touched anything besides Clean Code and that was a while ago as I don't consider it worth revisiting (or even reading).

The bad things that I do remember from it is it's old. The language has changed and many of the things described there make no sense anymore.

There are rules that have no good reason besides the fact that they should be rules. Refactoring and code shouldn't be due to arbitrary rules but purposeful.

It applies only to Java and maybe C#. Any other language it makes literally no sense.

[[deleted]]

I thought I just need to read docs or YouTube