I keep ~10 books at my desk. 9 of them are related to Javascript / Python / Probability etc [1]., There is one book though, that I really love to see everyday. Arabian Nights. That was the first book that was gifted to me when I was 11. I always had it with me. It reminds me of my childhood when things get too stressed and I read excerpts out of this book.
Among the books, you included Thinking, Fast and Slow which really stands out, and I was wondering what you gained from it, and how you'd summarize its relevance/value?
I've been meaning to read it, and I think it's really interesting that it provides enough value to be among the others.
Which translation of Arabian Nights do you have? I've been wanting to read it for a few years now but haven't got around to it. I think this will the next book I read. Any suggestions are appreciated!
Programming Python from O'Reilly. It helps lift my monitor nicely.
Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
As for more meta-programming/business/interpersonal books, the few that I've read are not ones I've ever had any real desire to go back to.
>> Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
In the old days you might use a compiler for 3-4 years. Nowadays, something you'd buy a book on could change versions in less than a year. Anything I bought in the early days of XCode/iOS was obsolete before I knew it. I bought a JQuery book and it was already a point release behind.
For real study, I find books better than online references, even if many do go out of date quite quickly these days. Something about printed words on paper that helps with focus. Online references are great for quick questions, but when I want to take some time to understand something in depth, I always prefer a book, or if one is not available, I will print the online material for study.
I have 2 of the 7 books of the X Window Programming Reference in that role.
Apart from K&R, there are very few programming books which are worthwhile; up to about 10 years ago the ORA series were worthwhile, but nowadays especially with StackExchange it's just far better to get the one fragment of information you need in a handy searchable pasteable internet format.
(Non-programming book recs: recently The Man Who Stole Portugal (non-fiction, surprisingly relevant to crypto) and The Time Of Gifts (biography, extravagantly written, requires checking wikipedia every 5 dozen words unless you have a really excellent knowledge of European history)
I don't really have "reference" books on my desk. Most rotate out quite frequently depending on what I'm researching and writing about. These can range from Raizman's History of Modern Design to Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic.
In addition I make plenty use of thesauruses. I have a few old ratty copies but mostly do a quick flit over my keyboard to pull up synonyms. When a word is on the tip of your tongue, looking up another that you know is related to it in a thesaurus is the best way to efficiently jog your memory.
I prefer the updated Garner's Modern English Usage because it caters for the broad church of English not only the USican dialect.
Also, +1 for a thesaurus.
I keep a dead tree Roget's handy – he's buried just down the road – and macOS provides the Oxford gratis. I also have Chambers on iPad/iPhone for pennies – a completely different slant.
Effective, concise communication is a huge part of tech. Get better at it day by day by surrounding yourself with the best tools. It costs next to nothing, and it improves the rest of your life to boot.
Aside: I keep a bookcase next to my desk with ~50 novels in three languages. One chapter rewires my brain to think different and has solved innumerable problems. Your HR dept may not approve. Challenge them.
Clean Code - Robert C. Martin: I got this book in college for a class and enjoy referring to it when I feel that my code quality is starting to decay.
Computer Principles of Modeling and Simulation - T.G. Lewis/B.J. Smith: I received this book as a gift from one of my favorite professors in college. It was published in 1979, but I find the material still relevant when it comes to introductory concepts of computer simulation.
Big Java Late Objects - Cay Horstmann: Another text from my time at college, specifically from my data structures course. I keep it because I like the way it explains fundamental data structures with well-written Java.
Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman/Elizabeth Robson: Another college textbook, and one of my least favorite reads of all time, but I'll be damned if it doesn't explain design patterns well enough for me to keep it around. I refer to it now and then but only when I feel like punishing myself.
Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, & CSS - Robin Nixon: A dangerously outdated introductory web development text that I bought when I was in high school. It was the first programming book I ever purchased and I keep it around because I enjoy remembering what it felt like to explore web development for the first time. I've not referred to it in years, for obvious reasons, but it explained full-stack web development very well and gave me a foundation that I've been able to build on to this day. I remember standing in the tiny Computer Science section at Barnes & Noble where I found it, taking it home and cracking it open, and working through it until I had to make myself go to sleep. It's the first programming book that really hooked me.
A few Chinese language books (to help communicate with co-workers)
A few Algorithmic Trading related books as well as a few math books.
And, laugh if you wish, a few Buddhism books to help remind myself patience, no negative energy, etc. If I am feeling frustrated I can read a few quick thoughts.
1. Design Patterns (GoF) - This book is all about design, someday I aim to really understand all the patterns.
2. High Performance Parallelism Pearls Volume 2 (Reinders/Jeffers) - There are couple of other books similar to this one. But, if you want to know how myriad HPC applications make use of parallel programming models such as MPI and OpenMP, this provides a good introduction.
3. The Annotated C++ Reference Manual April 1995 hardbound edition (Ellis/Stroustrup) -- What a fantastic little book, also got it for $4.95 at Powell's bookstore in Portland :) IMO this books provides a gentle introduction to C++, you can flip to any page and just start reading.
4. Numerical Recipes in C (Press, Teukolsky, et al.) - If I need to quickly prototype some scientific computation kernel, this is my go-to book.
5. Effective C++ 3rd edition (Meyers) - I like to approach this book from the back (i.e., indices), pick up a topic, and then read the contents one by one. Repeat.
6. Discovering Modern C++: An Intensive Course for Scientists, Engineers, and Programmers (Gottschling) - I like and dislike certain portions of the book. It definitely contains a lot of code explanations of C++ idioms, which helps a beginner like me.
A thick catalogue (ELFA Distrelec 'Elektronik och Automatisering' 2013-2014) on which I placed a stationary laptop hooked up to a 24" monitor. On that monitor I have access to more or less all the books in the world in one way or another so I don't bother with paper versions anymore.
I actually just made an engine [1] for the Searx [2] meta-search engine to allow it to search through a local library using the Recoll [3] search engine, making life even easier as search over my personal library is now integrated into the same search engine I use for other purposes. With full text search using a query language [4] which resembled the defunct Xesam [5] language it is above and beyond what the likes of Google Scholar offer.
While I'm in many ways something of a traditionalist - living on a 17th century farm in Sweden, cooking on a wood-burning stove, riding sidecar Soviet motorbikes etc - I made the move to a more or less paperless office quite a while ago. The one thing I do not do is rely on third-party services to accomplish this as those have proven to be both unreliable as well as unreasonably inquisitive with regard to any personal details they can filch from their users. I keep my own 'cloud', have my own (meta-)search engine, my own mail/web/etc server, etc.
It's one of the most informative books I've ever read with a really valuable perspective to view information through. I find myself applying it more frequently the more recently I've re-read it.
It is difficult for me to imagine its utility as a desk reference, but it is certainly just as rich and unusual a piece of literature as its reputation suggests.
Hofstadter's 2007 book "I Am A Strange Loop" develops one of GEB's themes in more depth. It's written in a more straightforward style than GEB, so it's less remarkable as a reading experience, but its perspective has stuck with me in a pretty fundamental way, so I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed GEB and wants to dig further into the puzzle of consciousness.
Motion seconded. I read it first when I was barely ten, and even though I barely understood a word of it, I made a vow to myself to keep coming back to it until I did. I've been coming back to it constantly ever since, and I think I finally get it. I think.
I keep a wide variety of references around this desk. Some of my favorites:
Manuel Lima's "Visual Complexity", "The Book of Circles", and "The Book of Trees". These are useful as references and as visualization inspiration.
Jacques Bertin's "Semiology of Graphics". Gorgeous and immensely useful.
Desmond and Nicholas Higham's "MATLAB Guide, 3rd Edition", and Yair Altman's "Accelerating MATLAB Performance". Both are invaluable for serious MATLAB work.
Titus A. Beu's book on Numerical Programming is very good as a reference.
For anyone needing to work on military simulations, "Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation" by Tolk is the best reference I have found on the subject.
And TAOCP and CLRS are here for reference purposes as well.
I read that book cover-to-cover and worked most of the examples back in my middle school days. Animating that hot air balloon in the "Sprites" section...memories!
Love all those books. Hadn't heard of the last one though. Looks like it's available online [1].
And actually, it has a few cool links on its homepage to similar books. In particular, there is a link to this gem [2], which, for example, has a chapter [3] on what appears to be a very interesting generalization [4] of the "master theorem" of CLRS. Another good resource that pages links to seems to be [5], which was recently mentioned on HN.
Of course, for an even deeper treatment of asymptotic analysis check out Flajolet and Sedgewick [6]!
Machinists handbook from the 60's era. I value it for the pre computer ways of thinking. Lots of gold in that one.
MOS 6502 series data book.
Moto 6809 Programmers Reference.
I actually had someone take me to the local Motorola office to get the 6809 book. Docs were free for the asking, and a kid asking was quite the event. Aspects of that conversation were important to my life.
I still have occasion to do paid work, and enjoy fun projects with both chips, and or variants seen today. These are few and far between, but very enjoyable. Mostly perspective and nostalgia in these. It's my roots.
The One Minute Manager parable has served me well mentoring and leading.
On Writing by Stephen King. Being able to tell a story with clarity has far more utility than one would expect. Besides, I want to write a novel one day.
The Art of Electronics, second edition. Probably need to update that one.
A Tektronix "How to use an Oscilloscope" book, well matched to my old, analog 400Mhz, 4 channel scope.
ANSI / ASME geometric dimensioning, tolerancing, standards books. 2D technical communication remains significant in my life.
Recent addition: Mold making Handbook.
I need a good primer and a good polymer tech reference. Any suggestions?
"Pirates of the Asteroids", childhood sci-fi. Again, perspective. Was the first one I really read through and got as a kid. Kept it, because asshole reminder. 'Nuff said. It's just a personal totem.
The books on my desk are a combination of reference books and books that are good conversation-starters (I've read them already and don't need them as reference, but they're good for lending out to people, especially junior devs).
Reference:
- Effective Java (good for learning the mindset of developing backward-compatible APIs in any language)
- Enterprise Integration Patterns (I work on an enterprise APIs team)
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications
- Camel in Action
Good for lending out:
- The Phoenix Project
- Making Work Visible
- Effective DevOps
- The Pragmatic Programmer
- REST in Practice
A long time ago, when I was a college kid with tons of free time, I'd sit for hours at Borders* or Barnes & Noble and just read computer books. God bless those employees for never kicking a 20-something poor kid out who lived on free coffee refills, yet never bought books.
At the time, Perl was more significant. Something about its syntax made sense, even though nowadays I cringe at it. Though Python is worse, in a different way...
A decade later, and I still sometimes need to spit out the results of a bunch of commands, iterate through them with some regex, format it, etc. Perl became the internet's 'duct-tape' for a reason.
It has been a really long time (years) since I had to use any printed book as reference material. For any question I have concerning a random factual matter, I am always able to find an adequate answer online in less time than it would take to reach for a book, look up the topic in the index, and then turn to the appropriate page.
Where I still find books useful is in learning a new subject from scratch. Reading an entire book from cover to cover gives me a broad mental overview of the whole subject, and that is extremely helpful when trying to put the random bits of knowledge I find online into context.
It answers almost any question you might have pertaining to workshop activities. Speeds, feeds, that kind of thing. I keep it in our break room in case one of us needs to look something up. A lot of the younger technicians are fresh out of school, and we also have apprentices on our shift. Having a resource like this is invaluable for when they have a question, and none of us old-timers are available to answer it because something major has broken and we're scrambling to make it not-broken.
Our company prints its own training materials and we have a veritable library of Standard Maintenance Procedures, as well as manufacturer's manuals for all the different machines in our shop. We keep them indexed in a large filing cabinet.
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po is a wonderful. I have Record of Linji (Huang Po's student) and Radical Zen: Sayings of Joshu (Huang Po's and Linji's contemporary) on my desk.
Princeton Companion to Mathematics: this guide is phenomenal in introducing a wide array of pure math topics. Just going through a few pages is hugely inspiring and simultaneously ego-deflating
I stumbled upon a dictionary of quotations of sorts (the quotes are organized alphabetically by topic/theme) and oddly enough I’ve begun keeping that nearby for the motivation, thought provocation and genuine entertainment those snippets of texts provide. I’ve enjoyed it so much I’ll likely replace it with a thick poetry book once I’ve exhausted it.
- Martin Henson - Elements of Functional Programming (old, and on purpose, I like to have a sense of the pre trend FP mindset) I suggest everyone to try to grab it (library or paid tree), the cover is so pretty https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/elements-function...
Had a bunch of books about electricity/electronics (google for 'best book about ...')
but haven't been able to find any other motivation to buy them. Also I have never printed the Common Lisp Quick Reference(http://clqr.boundp.org/clqr-a4-booklet-all.pdf) because I always imagine it having a really pretty cover, and everything I try just falls short.
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing, mostly because my coworkers frequently ask for advice regarding their 401ks and IRAs, and it's a solid baseline for frugal investing.
With respect to software I refer to Programming Elixir/Phoenix (although both Programming Elixir 1.6/Phoenix 1.4 should be released soon). I'm also going through Functional Web Development with Elixir, OTP, and Phoenix by Lance Halvorsen at the moment.
Outside of software I have:
- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
- Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
- Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
One book that I have been meaning to add next to Syd Field's Screenplay is Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee.
"Code Complete 2nd Ed." - McConnell
"DevOps Handbook" - Gene Kim et al
"Deep Work" - Cal Newport
"Tools of Titans" - Tim Ferris
"Bleeding Edge" - Thomas Pynchon
Sun Tzu's The Art of War, O'Reilly's SQL Pocket Guide, Numerical Recipes in C++, an old GW-Basic manual, and a reprint of the first edition of Machinery's Handbook.
Most of my work is boring old enterprise apps in java, c# or c++; the GW-Basic manual is a relic from my first computer that I keep around for sentimental reasons. Numerical Recipes is referred to on occasion, as is the SQL pocket guide, the other two are good for taking a 5 minute break from things.
I use a library so have about 10+ on rotation every 2 weeks covering every topic. graphic novels, reference books, programming books, science books. with membership to 3 libraries it's much better than owning them and letting the get dusty on a shelf. I admit this came as a result of moving country and having to sell all my books. I will never go back to owning books I have so much variety now. public libraries are the greatest institution to exist.
Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman is something that I feel calls to me at times, and my bibleworn copy often sits on my workbench. I even have some sections memorized.
On that topic, I really liked Advanced Unix Programming by Marc Rochkind. [1] It was an early Unix programming book and covered very well how to correctly use many important Unix system calls and showed how to write some non-trivial apps including a simple DBMS, using them. IIRC I read recently that he is coming out with a new edition after many years:
For most of my life never really had an interest in working out but learning more about calisthenics and body weight fitness in general has really changed things for me in a positive way, and this book really shows how to progress without access to weights or a gym.
None. Need to be prepared to leave at a moments notice. I used to keep a large technical library, but now it is at home. After having seen engineers with 25 years of service walked out the door with zero notice, I will be prepared to do the same.
Someone I know was "walked out" from the UK Ministry of Defence. He wasn't allowed to touch anything after being informed, but he was taken to his desk and asked what was his -- pictures of his children and so on.
(British employment law requires employers to give a notice period, but the employee doesn't have to be at work. This person would have then had three-six months "gardening leave" on full pay.)
_Amphigorey Too_ by Edward Gorey. When I've been staring at a computer screen and thinking about logic for too long it's nice to look at some beautiful hand drawn illustrations and enjoy some surreal humor.
My Emacs manual, only book I keep on my desk at the moment. Truth is, if I'm going to read for pleasure I go to my bookshelf. I don't want to read where I work.
Hello Hacker folks. Have previously shared a few essays in this forum, since topic of the day is book recommendations coincidentally recently published a collection of books that had inspired many of these essays - available on medium if you're interested. Cheers.
"One exception is The Cuckoo's Egg, which I reread every ~5 years."
I do too, others I like to reread "hackers" by Steven Levy and Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary. I don't know why but I always find these books highly entertaining.
The Cuckoo's Egg is such a good read, at the time it came out there was a television program in the UK about it and I have been rereading the book every couple of years since watching that.
The only negative is the biscuit recipe isn't very good.
I've long ago recycled or burned most of my books as no library would take them. I only have a leather bound encyclopedia remaining in my house which I also want to get rid off. So much money poured down the drain... I don't find it enjoyable re-reading the same stuff.
Most recently, I've been keeping Character Strengths and Virtues on my desk. It's a catalogue of the things that we think are good about human psychology. It's a good conversation starter, and fun to flip through and read sections.
Joel Whitburn's "Top 40 Hits". "Computer Music" by Dodge and Jerse. Several others have been displaced by the web ... or obsoleted by the inexorable March of Science. (Life was more interesting before surface-mount.)
That's a great book. I've read parts of both the Unix and later Linux versions.
Edit: It also reminded me of the O'Reilly book Unix Power Tools - another classic. I had bought it early on and read almost the whole thing. Both it and the Handbook are quite thick, too.
Deep C Secrets
50 Effective C++ tips
Design patterns Elements of ReUsable OO software
Several short sentences about writing
The official Ted guide to speaking
TAOCP always finds its way back to my desk. Volume 2 is here at the moment. I don't really keep any books as references, though. I have kept K&R on my desk before but these days I mostly use online documentation.
tequila_shot|8 years ago
[1] https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp... [3]https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Probability-Models-Tenth... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Black-Book-Important-Informat...
alehul|8 years ago
I've been meaning to read it, and I think it's really interesting that it provides enough value to be among the others.
Abundnce10|8 years ago
falcolas|8 years ago
Honestly, I've yet to find a physical book that has proven to be a useful reference in the long run. Programming languages just change too quickly; it's the web or the code.
As for more meta-programming/business/interpersonal books, the few that I've read are not ones I've ever had any real desire to go back to.
yathern|8 years ago
Wow - same with me. Perfect size to match my monitor base! I also keep a 2002(?) copy of "Creating Web Pages for Dummies" to remind me of my roots.
bluedino|8 years ago
In the old days you might use a compiler for 3-4 years. Nowadays, something you'd buy a book on could change versions in less than a year. Anything I bought in the early days of XCode/iOS was obsolete before I knew it. I bought a JQuery book and it was already a point release behind.
jasonkostempski|8 years ago
Me either, but how else do you signal to other programmers how knowledgeable and well-rounded you are in the field?
ams6110|8 years ago
pjc50|8 years ago
Apart from K&R, there are very few programming books which are worthwhile; up to about 10 years ago the ORA series were worthwhile, but nowadays especially with StackExchange it's just far better to get the one fragment of information you need in a handy searchable pasteable internet format.
(Non-programming book recs: recently The Man Who Stole Portugal (non-fiction, surprisingly relevant to crypto) and The Time Of Gifts (biography, extravagantly written, requires checking wikipedia every 5 dozen words unless you have a really excellent knowledge of European history)
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
matthewwiese|8 years ago
- Garner's Modern American Usage
- The Hardware Hacker (I am a huge fan of bunnie)
- The Art of Electronics (Horowitz and Hill)
I don't really have "reference" books on my desk. Most rotate out quite frequently depending on what I'm researching and writing about. These can range from Raizman's History of Modern Design to Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic.
In addition I make plenty use of thesauruses. I have a few old ratty copies but mostly do a quick flit over my keyboard to pull up synonyms. When a word is on the tip of your tongue, looking up another that you know is related to it in a thesaurus is the best way to efficiently jog your memory.
auxbuss|8 years ago
I prefer the updated Garner's Modern English Usage because it caters for the broad church of English not only the USican dialect.
Also, +1 for a thesaurus.
I keep a dead tree Roget's handy – he's buried just down the road – and macOS provides the Oxford gratis. I also have Chambers on iPad/iPhone for pennies – a completely different slant.
Effective, concise communication is a huge part of tech. Get better at it day by day by surrounding yourself with the best tools. It costs next to nothing, and it improves the rest of your life to boot.
Aside: I keep a bookcase next to my desk with ~50 novels in three languages. One chapter rewires my brain to think different and has solved innumerable problems. Your HR dept may not approve. Challenge them.
godelmachine|8 years ago
k1ns|8 years ago
Computer Principles of Modeling and Simulation - T.G. Lewis/B.J. Smith: I received this book as a gift from one of my favorite professors in college. It was published in 1979, but I find the material still relevant when it comes to introductory concepts of computer simulation.
Big Java Late Objects - Cay Horstmann: Another text from my time at college, specifically from my data structures course. I keep it because I like the way it explains fundamental data structures with well-written Java.
Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman/Elizabeth Robson: Another college textbook, and one of my least favorite reads of all time, but I'll be damned if it doesn't explain design patterns well enough for me to keep it around. I refer to it now and then but only when I feel like punishing myself.
Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, & CSS - Robin Nixon: A dangerously outdated introductory web development text that I bought when I was in high school. It was the first programming book I ever purchased and I keep it around because I enjoy remembering what it felt like to explore web development for the first time. I've not referred to it in years, for obvious reasons, but it explained full-stack web development very well and gave me a foundation that I've been able to build on to this day. I remember standing in the tiny Computer Science section at Barnes & Noble where I found it, taking it home and cracking it open, and working through it until I had to make myself go to sleep. It's the first programming book that really hooked me.
meifun|8 years ago
A few Chinese language books (to help communicate with co-workers)
A few Algorithmic Trading related books as well as a few math books.
And, laugh if you wish, a few Buddhism books to help remind myself patience, no negative energy, etc. If I am feeling frustrated I can read a few quick thoughts.
alehul|8 years ago
Could you share your favorite books on algorithmic trading? I've been interested in it for a while.
danesparza|8 years ago
defterGoose|8 years ago
agumonkey|8 years ago
sg0|8 years ago
1. Design Patterns (GoF) - This book is all about design, someday I aim to really understand all the patterns.
2. High Performance Parallelism Pearls Volume 2 (Reinders/Jeffers) - There are couple of other books similar to this one. But, if you want to know how myriad HPC applications make use of parallel programming models such as MPI and OpenMP, this provides a good introduction.
3. The Annotated C++ Reference Manual April 1995 hardbound edition (Ellis/Stroustrup) -- What a fantastic little book, also got it for $4.95 at Powell's bookstore in Portland :) IMO this books provides a gentle introduction to C++, you can flip to any page and just start reading.
4. Numerical Recipes in C (Press, Teukolsky, et al.) - If I need to quickly prototype some scientific computation kernel, this is my go-to book.
5. Effective C++ 3rd edition (Meyers) - I like to approach this book from the back (i.e., indices), pick up a topic, and then read the contents one by one. Repeat.
6. Discovering Modern C++: An Intensive Course for Scientists, Engineers, and Programmers (Gottschling) - I like and dislike certain portions of the book. It definitely contains a lot of code explanations of C++ idioms, which helps a beginner like me.
Yetanfou|8 years ago
I actually just made an engine [1] for the Searx [2] meta-search engine to allow it to search through a local library using the Recoll [3] search engine, making life even easier as search over my personal library is now integrated into the same search engine I use for other purposes. With full text search using a query language [4] which resembled the defunct Xesam [5] language it is above and beyond what the likes of Google Scholar offer.
While I'm in many ways something of a traditionalist - living on a 17th century farm in Sweden, cooking on a wood-burning stove, riding sidecar Soviet motorbikes etc - I made the move to a more or less paperless office quite a while ago. The one thing I do not do is rely on third-party services to accomplish this as those have proven to be both unreliable as well as unreasonably inquisitive with regard to any personal details they can filch from their users. I keep my own 'cloud', have my own (meta-)search engine, my own mail/web/etc server, etc.
[1] https://github.com/asciimoo/searx
[2] https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/pull/1257 and https://github.com/koniu/recoll-webui/pull/61
[3] http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/
[4] http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/webhelp/docs...
[5] http://www.xesam.org/main/XesamUserSearchLanguage95/
inimino|8 years ago
What software do you use for this, and how much time does it take for you to keep it running?
alehul|8 years ago
It's one of the most informative books I've ever read with a really valuable perspective to view information through. I find myself applying it more frequently the more recently I've re-read it.
marssaxman|8 years ago
Hofstadter's 2007 book "I Am A Strange Loop" develops one of GEB's themes in more depth. It's written in a more straightforward style than GEB, so it's less remarkable as a reading experience, but its perspective has stuck with me in a pretty fundamental way, so I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed GEB and wants to dig further into the puzzle of consciousness.
parsthis|8 years ago
edit: typo
genjipress|8 years ago
dominotw|8 years ago
thats really intersting. curious if you have any examples tht come to your mind.
engi_nerd|8 years ago
Manuel Lima's "Visual Complexity", "The Book of Circles", and "The Book of Trees". These are useful as references and as visualization inspiration.
Jacques Bertin's "Semiology of Graphics". Gorgeous and immensely useful.
Desmond and Nicholas Higham's "MATLAB Guide, 3rd Edition", and Yair Altman's "Accelerating MATLAB Performance". Both are invaluable for serious MATLAB work.
Titus A. Beu's book on Numerical Programming is very good as a reference.
For anyone needing to work on military simulations, "Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation" by Tolk is the best reference I have found on the subject.
And TAOCP and CLRS are here for reference purposes as well.
donohoe|8 years ago
http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_gu...
robodale|8 years ago
danesparza|8 years ago
CodeArtisan|8 years ago
More by nostalgia than by need
- The art of computer programmming
- Hacker's delight
These two are of great help when doing programming challenges. Hacker's delight is about bitwise tricks.
- Open Data Structures
Useful for a quick refresh on data structures.
nicklaf|8 years ago
And actually, it has a few cool links on its homepage to similar books. In particular, there is a link to this gem [2], which, for example, has a chapter [3] on what appears to be a very interesting generalization [4] of the "master theorem" of CLRS. Another good resource that pages links to seems to be [5], which was recently mentioned on HN.
Of course, for an even deeper treatment of asymptotic analysis check out Flajolet and Sedgewick [6]!
[1] http://opendatastructures.org/
[2] http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/
[3] http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/notes/99-re...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akra%E2%80%93Bazzi_method
[5] (PDF warning) http://opendatastructures.org/mcs.pdf
[6] http://ac.cs.princeton.edu/home/
cocacola1|8 years ago
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...
korbonits|8 years ago
ddingus|8 years ago
MOS 6502 series data book.
Moto 6809 Programmers Reference.
I actually had someone take me to the local Motorola office to get the 6809 book. Docs were free for the asking, and a kid asking was quite the event. Aspects of that conversation were important to my life.
I still have occasion to do paid work, and enjoy fun projects with both chips, and or variants seen today. These are few and far between, but very enjoyable. Mostly perspective and nostalgia in these. It's my roots.
The One Minute Manager parable has served me well mentoring and leading.
On Writing by Stephen King. Being able to tell a story with clarity has far more utility than one would expect. Besides, I want to write a novel one day.
The Art of Electronics, second edition. Probably need to update that one.
A Tektronix "How to use an Oscilloscope" book, well matched to my old, analog 400Mhz, 4 channel scope.
ANSI / ASME geometric dimensioning, tolerancing, standards books. 2D technical communication remains significant in my life.
Recent addition: Mold making Handbook.
I need a good primer and a good polymer tech reference. Any suggestions?
"Pirates of the Asteroids", childhood sci-fi. Again, perspective. Was the first one I really read through and got as a kid. Kept it, because asshole reminder. 'Nuff said. It's just a personal totem.
ddingus|8 years ago
Engineering Handbook from the 60's era. Just glanced at it, and realized I had the title wrong.
Man, there are so many great references in this thread. I've made a short list, and will enjoy my next trip to Powell's books.
Thanks all.
organsnyder|8 years ago
Reference:
Good for lending out:hiram112|8 years ago
Effective Perl Programming.*
A long time ago, when I was a college kid with tons of free time, I'd sit for hours at Borders* or Barnes & Noble and just read computer books. God bless those employees for never kicking a 20-something poor kid out who lived on free coffee refills, yet never bought books.
At the time, Perl was more significant. Something about its syntax made sense, even though nowadays I cringe at it. Though Python is worse, in a different way...
A decade later, and I still sometimes need to spit out the results of a bunch of commands, iterate through them with some regex, format it, etc. Perl became the internet's 'duct-tape' for a reason.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Perl-Programming-Idiomatic-...
[2] https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/borders-files-for-ba...
ambrosite|8 years ago
Where I still find books useful is in learning a new subject from scratch. Reading an entire book from cover to cover gives me a broad mental overview of the whole subject, and that is extremely helpful when trying to put the random bits of knowledge I find online into context.
optimusmaximus|8 years ago
It answers almost any question you might have pertaining to workshop activities. Speeds, feeds, that kind of thing. I keep it in our break room in case one of us needs to look something up. A lot of the younger technicians are fresh out of school, and we also have apprentices on our shift. Having a resource like this is invaluable for when they have a question, and none of us old-timers are available to answer it because something major has broken and we're scrambling to make it not-broken.
Our company prints its own training materials and we have a veritable library of Standard Maintenance Procedures, as well as manufacturer's manuals for all the different machines in our shop. We keep them indexed in a large filing cabinet.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Desk-Ref-Thomas-J-Glover/dp/188507160...
genjipress|8 years ago
Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham
The Elements Of Style, Strunk & White (4th ed.)
Telling Writing, Macrorie
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po
The Pocket Pema Chödrön
Why I Write, George Orwell
Others come and go from time to time, but those stay.
natex|8 years ago
imranq|8 years ago
ohiovr|8 years ago
chrisfinne|8 years ago
"What's my purpose?" "You pass butter." -- Rick Sanchez
microtonal|8 years ago
- Speech and Language Processing, Jurafsky & Martin
- K&R
- Sedgewick & Wayne, but more for teaching than anything else.
In a previous life:
- The C++ Standard Library, Nicolai Josuttis,
- C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4, Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield
- The C++ Programming Language, Bjarne Stroustrup
- Effective Java, Joshua Bloch
- Scott Meyers' Effective C++ books.
3uclid|8 years ago
noobly|8 years ago
technics256|8 years ago
agumonkey|8 years ago
Had a bunch of books about electricity/electronics (google for 'best book about ...')
Also bitcoin got me to hear about Statistics:
- http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL - https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf
Lastly, Queinnec LiSP is never far from reach
abhirag|8 years ago
1. The Art of the Metaobject Protocol (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-metaobject-protocol)
2. The Art of Prolog (https://www.amazon.com/Art-Prolog-Second-Programming-Techniq...)
but haven't been able to find any other motivation to buy them. Also I have never printed the Common Lisp Quick Reference(http://clqr.boundp.org/clqr-a4-booklet-all.pdf) because I always imagine it having a really pretty cover, and everything I try just falls short.
raker|8 years ago
notananthem|8 years ago
I refer to my design books. My favorite of all time, is "The Nature and Art of Workmanship" by David Pye, given to me by a former woodturning mentor.
amichal|8 years ago
There are no physical books now on the desk but the table of contents of some of the older books remind me of what to google often enough
kerbalspacepro|8 years ago
moreorless|8 years ago
snake117|8 years ago
Outside of software I have:
- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
- Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
- Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
One book that I have been meaning to add next to Syd Field's Screenplay is Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee.
kfrzcode|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
fotbr|8 years ago
Most of my work is boring old enterprise apps in java, c# or c++; the GW-Basic manual is a relic from my first computer that I keep around for sentimental reasons. Numerical Recipes is referred to on occasion, as is the SQL pocket guide, the other two are good for taking a 5 minute break from things.
byteface|8 years ago
rla3rd|8 years ago
https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Elixir-1-3-Functional-Con...
https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Python-Techniques-Pr...
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Arbitrage-Deskbook-Stephane-...
cosinetau|8 years ago
roberto|8 years ago
sremani|8 years ago
Scott Adams' [How to fail at Almost every thing and still win big]
Meditations by marcus arelius
LukeShu|8 years ago
It's often a better reference than the POSIX spec is.
vram22|7 years ago
http://basepath.com/aup/
[1] I got to read it because it used to be shipped for free with all HP-UX servers for some time, when I was working in an HP joint venture company.
knightofmars|8 years ago
by Donald G. Reinertsen
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Product-Development-Flow-G...
PoachedSausage|8 years ago
wyclif|8 years ago
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Euclid, Elements of Geometry
Fuller, Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
Greene, Robert. The 48 Laws of Power
Kernighan & Ritchie. The C Programming Language
The King James Bible
Polya, George. How to Solve It
Mindstormy|8 years ago
For most of my life never really had an interest in working out but learning more about calisthenics and body weight fitness in general has really changed things for me in a positive way, and this book really shows how to progress without access to weights or a gym.
jquinby|8 years ago
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury
ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications
ARRL Antenna Book
American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Ed.
Bible/Lectionary, Breviary, and Catechism
If fiction counts, I will probably never delete Flatland or the complete Joseph Conrad from my Kindle.
Yahivin|8 years ago
justuseapen|8 years ago
Coincidentally, I have The Undiscovered Self sitting on my desk at this moment.
madengr|8 years ago
Symbiote|8 years ago
Someone I know was "walked out" from the UK Ministry of Defence. He wasn't allowed to touch anything after being informed, but he was taken to his desk and asked what was his -- pictures of his children and so on.
(British employment law requires employers to give a notice period, but the employee doesn't have to be at work. This person would have then had three-six months "gardening leave" on full pay.)
yomritoyj|8 years ago
Rudin, Real and Complex Analysis
Halmos, Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces
Billingsley, Probability and Measure
Kelley, General Topology
Lang, Undergraduate Algebra
Simmons, Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis
Parthasarathy, Probability Measures on Metric Spaces
Whinston, Green and Mas-Colell, Microeconomic Theory
tejinderss|8 years ago
m3h|8 years ago
I have nothing programming related on my desk; we have Google to thanks for that.
jhedwards|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
deostroll|8 years ago
MarlonPro|8 years ago
~10 SQL Server/DW/BI books (not just on the desk but scattered everywhere)
lettergram|8 years ago
nicholast|8 years ago
https://medium.com/@_NicT_/recommended-further-reading-ae463...
Shivam_Dewan|8 years ago
-Sapiens : A brief history of humankind
-Zen pencils
- Book of Life - By J. Krishnamurti
thecodeboy|8 years ago
Ascetik|8 years ago
InitialLastName|8 years ago
- USB Complete 4th ed (Axelson)
- Electromagnetic Compatibility (Ott)
- Small Signal Audio Design (Self)
- Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus
- Verilog by Example (a.k.a. the Little Blue Book) (Readler)
- Mouser Catalog
stinos|8 years ago
52-6F-62|8 years ago
But I do have an Ascii table and a DEC/HEX/OCT/BIN chart so that I can just glance up if I'm not feeling particularly quick.
MrMid|8 years ago
ams6110|8 years ago
or in some systems, the command 'ascii'
tta|8 years ago
cdpolyme|8 years ago
colonelxc|8 years ago
More seriously, I generally don't re-read books. One exception is The Cuckoo's Egg, which I reread every ~5 years.
nkassis|8 years ago
I do too, others I like to reread "hackers" by Steven Levy and Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary. I don't know why but I always find these books highly entertaining.
Glad I'm not alone.
tonyedgecombe|8 years ago
The only negative is the biscuit recipe isn't very good.
AKdeBerg|8 years ago
tcopeland|8 years ago
protomok|8 years ago
- The C Programming Language (2nd edition) - Brian Kerningham / Denis Ritchie
- The C++ Programming Language (4th edition which discuss C++11) - Stroustrup
- Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - GoF
- Effective C++, Effective Modern C++ - Scott Meyers
~ Specifications ~
- C99 draft spec, C++11 draft spec (too cheap to buy official copies!)
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
vinchuco|8 years ago
minieggs|8 years ago
Nothing related to my day job in JS land, just fun reading material for my free time.
d6de964|8 years ago
kybernetikos|8 years ago
8bitsrule|8 years ago
PascLeRasc|8 years ago
UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook. I have an old version but it's also great material and excellent writing.
vram22|7 years ago
That's a great book. I've read parts of both the Unix and later Linux versions.
Edit: It also reminded me of the O'Reilly book Unix Power Tools - another classic. I had bought it early on and read almost the whole thing. Both it and the Handbook are quite thick, too.
interatx|8 years ago
[1] I think this is most likely situation but wasn't sure if more would answer this.
idubrov|8 years ago
2. The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition
3. The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
(in backpack until I finish it). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
mindcrime|8 years ago
hknd|8 years ago
gradyj|8 years ago
I'm a junior in my first job and I've had these books in my personal library for a while now. Incredible helpful
vollmond|8 years ago
There's also Clean Architecture, but I haven't read that one yet.
frenchie4111|8 years ago
KeepTalking|8 years ago
psyc|8 years ago
kyberias|8 years ago
brailsafe|8 years ago
kyberias|8 years ago
ppod|8 years ago
rokhayakebe|8 years ago
Every now and then I open these at a random page and read.
royalghost|8 years ago
It reminds me that life is suppose to be fun and not just about algorithm and technologies!
Finnucane|8 years ago
weitzj|8 years ago
Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
lowbloodsugar|8 years ago
The study and practice of personal information management.
csmckay|8 years ago
icc97|8 years ago
Tufte's Visual Display of Quantitive Information.
Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things.
justuseapen|8 years ago
mmumma|8 years ago
calebm|8 years ago
mcphail|8 years ago
mathieubordere|8 years ago
pavlov|8 years ago
porsager|8 years ago
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
oneplane|8 years ago
flaviocopes|8 years ago
bikamonki|8 years ago
Mongoose|8 years ago
georgewsinger|8 years ago
scaryclam|8 years ago
kd5bjo|8 years ago
lyk|8 years ago
ojuara|8 years ago
nextos|8 years ago
aportnoy|8 years ago
tsguo|8 years ago
Makes my life feel ephemeral and therefore more precious
https://amzn.to/2Jm01dG
memonkey|8 years ago
Kajayacht|8 years ago
Kapura|8 years ago
- Procedural Generation in Game Design
- The Art of Halo 3
- PUBG + Cats
bovermyer|8 years ago
GiorgioG|8 years ago
- Get Programming with F#
vuyani|8 years ago
hodl|8 years ago
pruthvishetty|8 years ago
* The Intelligent Investor
* Malgudi Days
jackconnor|8 years ago
cup-of-tea|8 years ago
megaman22|8 years ago
Also Functional Programming in C#.
I'm a bit of a Manning junkie
Install_Gentoo|8 years ago
[deleted]