[quohort]

Why do programming books always have some random unrelated illustration on the front?

Usually when you have a textbook, they will have some nice illustration that is tangentially related to the content of the book (like fibonacci spiral for a math book or some chemical reaction for a chemistry book for example). But I suppose that there isn't really such an equivalent unless it's a computer graphics book.

I guess it's also like how every project has to have its own "cutesey" mascot.

[self_awareness]

This is mostly an O'Reilly thing.

https://www.oreilly.com/content/a-short-history-of-the-oreil...

TL;DR:

> Some of the people at O’Reilly were taken aback: they thought the animals were weird, ugly, and a bit scary. But Tim [O'Reilly] got it immediately—he liked the quirkiness of the animals, thought it would help to make the books stand out from other publishers’ offerings—and it just felt right.

They even have a browser which helps you identify the animal:

https://www.oreilly.com/animals.csp

[otteromkram]

Yeah, especially that persnickety, "The Programming Language" book. Talk about obscure covers!

/s

I think it's just an O'Reilly thing. It keeps the people guessing.

Actually, the covers also make the books easily recognizable. Animals, statues, etc., are all good memory association drivers.