
Free Programming Books - nilsbunger
https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md
======
hawkharris
There seems to be a big trend toward authors publishing programming books for
free online and offering hard copies that you buy, too. In general, if someone
offers me a free product and a paid one, I'll stick with free. No surprise
there. But coding books are an interesting exception.

I find it much easier to learn a new language when I'm using a book instead of
reading it for free online. A book is a single-purpose device; you can only
use it to learn about one topic, or set of topics. It doesn't vibrate, notify
me of emails and text or encourage me to go on other tangents. For a goal such
as learning R or Haskell, which requires a lot of mental energy, having this
extra focus makes a big difference.

~~~
marincounty
Yea, I like physical books too, but I have wasted hours on figuring out code
examples with typos.

~~~
rdudek
I agree, but i've noticed that digital books have code typos too. Now, there
are authors that will update them to do fixes. Some hard copies have online
section that you can go and download "fixed" pages.

------
computerjunkie
An awesome list! I saw this list on stack overflow before it was transferred
to Github. It really does save you loads of time as compared to searching for
books using Google.

Another fantastic resource, [http://pineapple.io/](http://pineapple.io/)

Edit: not sure why i've been downvoted? is it because I recommended another
resource?

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hf
A fine, curated list.

As with most meta-topical lists, there is virtually no profit in browsing
through it. Time may be wasted a-plenty, though.

Bring a question about technology X with you, go straight to section X and
then _consult_ with the search engine of your choice (or a hacker friend,
idealy) which book to actually read.

Hint: some of those have wikipedia-pages, like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-
Order_Perl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-Order_Perl) and others hide
the books behind an email signup front (one is a strong signal for quality,
the other, perhaps, not so much).

~~~
rgrau
Totally agree, Btw, HOP is coming just after SICP in my favourites. Great that
you mentioned it :). It's great way of seeing same concepts applied to more
day to day stuff like html parsing, walking directories, or regexps.

------
nilsbunger
I'm digging into "Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do
About It?"
[https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfb...](https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfbook/perfbook-1c-e1.pdf)
and liking it!

~~~
SeanDav
when accessing this site through Firefox I get "Peer's Certificate has been
revoked." Chrome works fine though.

~~~
fhars
If the certificate has been revoked (as it should be if it is older than a
day), it is actually Firefox that is working fine in this context. Probably
heartbleed fallout.

------
hmhrex
Dumb question here: Any way to maybe download all the PDF/HTML books in one
big collection? I could imagine it being pretty huge, but I might interested
in downloading it.

~~~
computerjunkie
Good idea. This would solve the issue of broken links or domains that have
reached their EOF.

Having all the books does not translate to using them. I used to keep plenty
of books that I knew I would never use.

Tip: Pick the subject you really want to learn, then use the list for that
specific subject.

One good book can teach you a lot more than 3-4 poorly written books.

------
ryannevius
Original HN post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6533997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6533997)

------
lmedinas
The link is great but how many times it was posted here ?

~~~
MisterMashable
It wouldn't be a bad thing to repost it every now and again. Which reminds me,
people are as burried in bookmarks as they are in email. Solution = new
startup?

~~~
computerjunkie
Definitely not a bad idea to repost good links. A solution could be a startup,
but that's just producing another bookmarking system and reinventing the
wheel. I guess that's why there is search on HN.

I would like to propose for a solution to this. To avoid reposts, why doesn't
HN create a "Sticky" of good resources like these? It would definitely reduce
reposts and also act as a "Go to" link for X(Technology/Tool/Books).

Everyday new people find out about HN and having a link where people can refer
to for "typical HN" FAQ's would be great. Just my $0.02.

------
Imouto
Is this easily available in a single torrent? If not I see no reason of not
just getting Gentoomen library.

[http://books.gentoomen.org/](http://books.gentoomen.org/)

------
thyrsus
It's not clear to me what the policy is on links to copyright violating
offers, e.g., "jQuery: Novice to Ninja: New Kicks and Tricks - SitePoint".
SitePoint.com is currently asking $29 for that eBook, and graciously appears
not to be applying DRM. Unfortunately, the phrase "really free" in
CONTRIBUTING.md does not really resolve the question.

So what version of "free" does the list intend?

~~~
Imouto
Probably free as in freedom or "libre" as our lord and savior rms would call
it. DRM-free is almost free but not quite.

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rubiquity
My favorite free programming books are anything by Beej. His networking[0] and
C[1] books are simply phenomenal.

0 - [http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/](http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/)

1 - [http://beej.us/guide/bgc/](http://beej.us/guide/bgc/)

------
suyash
Not all of them are books, some of them are long blog posts some just web
pages.

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gansai
Does this github project handle the scenario where some of the URLs become
dead links or some of the domains expire? Automatically, these links/domains
need not be shown to the user.

~~~
vhf
Hi, repo owner here. Yep, I'm doing my best to keep dead links out. See this
issue for example : [https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-
books/issues/850](https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/issues/850)

~~~
MaysonL
Hi, missing Project Oberon (see projectoberon.com). Also, should credit Wirth
as author of Compiler Construction.

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AbhishekBiswal
Man, people should write ore books on Flask framework. :(

~~~
gdulli
I'm not sure that's true. Books can create a DRY problem. When a project moves
fast enough, any books written about it have a short window during which
they're relevant. After which time they can do as much harm as good, between
the info being out of date, or wrong, causing confusion with new developers,
diverting them from the official docs, etc.

Flask is pretty small and simple, so books are less necessary than they would
be for other types of projects. As long as its own documentation remains good
that's going to be the best option.

------
sdsk8
I need a good book on emulation, i wan't to write an old console emulator.
Anyone know a good material for that?

Thanks

~~~
zhemao
Really, the hard part about writing an emulator is getting the documentation
on the system you are trying to emulate. What console are you trying to write
an emulator for?

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ZenPro
Quite simply a phenomenal resource and one of the best links I have ever seen
posted on HN.

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aswanson
Thanks much. The collection of this many resources in one place has improved
my life.

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erikano
Nice. But how do I decide which to start reading and in which order to
continue?

~~~
hf
As with all things: necessity dictates, curiosity nudges.

If you come without baggage (project idea, interest in FP, what-have-you),
you'll need to come back later.

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greyfox
wow, great link thanks for that, i wish they were exportable to PDF, i too
prefer physical (paper) books, but was given an e-reader for xmas and have
been reading lots of pdf's on it.

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user1241320
Great! I'd love to read something on [http://ceylon-lang.org](http://ceylon-
lang.org) or [http://kotlin.jetbrains.org](http://kotlin.jetbrains.org)

~~~
imikushin
Go for Scala (Scalaz lib) AND Clojure: could save you some time.

~~~
user1241320
I've been using and loving Scala for more than a year now as my main language.
I was just curious to hear about these others, that's all.

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xxxmadraxxx
Great resource, thanks!

[From someone else who's not seen it before]

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nagarch
very good ollection

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increment_i
Skimming through this list was jaw dropping.

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quackerhacker
I'm moving over to MongoDB (NoSQL), but an EXTREMELY awesome book that I have
in my collection is SQL Hacks. It's published by O'Reilly. It's an extremely
awesome book on optimizing SQL queries appropriately. It's not in this list,
but I definitely recommend it!!!!

~~~
vixen99
"free-programming-books". It's not on the list because it's not (unless you
know something I don't).

