
Reddit's favorite programming books, from 3.5B comments - mgdo
https://redditfavorites.com/books/programming/
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unclesaamm
I've read most of those books, and while I wouldn't discourage anyone from
reading them, I don't think it's a great reading list either. You'll have to
dig through a bit of cruft to get to the gems.

Partly, it's that programming books have such low lifespan that the ones that
still get recommended after a decade are often deeply assimilated into
programmer culture already. For example, when I read Clean Code and Pragmatic
Programmer last year, I didn't find any of it to be interesting or remotely
surprising - but I have been working at "agile" shops for a while, and perhaps
those ideas were more revelatory when the books first came out.

Here's a more fun reading list, based off my own tastes. Maybe some of these
are on the list, but I found it hard to scroll past a certain point as well:

\- Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets

\- The Nature of Computation

\- The Little Schemer

\- Programming Pearls

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tarsinge
The Little Schemer is indeed a fun read, and it's relatively short and
digestible (compared to SICP which I have on my reading list but is daunting
to me). If you are used to languages with imperative loops it will give you a
nice perspective on recursion. Slightly related but I found myself using
Reduce/Fold pattern a lot more in my everyday languages after reading it.

Maybe following a tutorial in Erlang/Elixir might have the same effect, in
addition to being more actual and practical, but also maybe less fun.

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michaelsbradley
Looking for recommendations on a "best" one or two books to read on SQL /
PostgreSQL.

Have any of you read _Mastering PostgreSQL in Application Development_ [+]?
I'm aware it's a fairly recent title, but I'm in need of something like that
and am wondering if it's worth the money. The free sample chapter looks
promising, I'll give it that.

I'm working my way through the official PostgreSQL docs, and they're really
good, but I find myself struggling a bit (a lot). I'm fluent in a handful of
programming languages (dabbled in many), and appreciate abstractions like HOFs
and monads, but I'm finding it difficult to express myself in SQL, and that
tells me some underlying concepts haven't quite clicked.

[+] [https://masteringpostgresql.com/](https://masteringpostgresql.com/)

~~~
zzzzzzzza
I don't know about books, but I've found the website use the index luke to be
helpful with sql in general. I've also heard good things about joe celko's
books.

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latenightcoding
I'm sure the comments that were analyzed span many years: 2 Perl books and
"Javascript: The Good Parts".

The Art of Computer Programming, SICP and Introduction to algorithms are books
that are commonly recommended but very few people have finished reading them.

~~~
frugalmail
"Javascript: The Good Parts" is often shown as an example of just how bad
JavaScript is because it's almost like a pocket edition.

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ryandrake
Solid list, but didn’t see any of Scott Meyers C++ books there, which is
pretty surprising. Unlike other C++ books he tends to discuss the “why” along
with the “what”. Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though!

~~~
adamnemecek
> Nice to see Reddit knows about SICP though!

...truly a tome from the abyss of obscurity.

~~~
huehehue
Seems super common and overhyped for the HN or /prog/ community, sure. Though,
at 5 jobs over 3 years I haven't worked with a single person who's ever heard
of SICP (or really any programming book for that matter). That includes
security & big Data work at a Fortune 500.

Quite few professional programmers (in the grand scheme of things) actually
read programming books unless they're forced to.

~~~
adamnemecek
> Quite few professionals (in the grand scheme of things) actually read
> programming books unless they're forced to.

FTFY. I agree, it's a shame but at the same time I understand.

~~~
y4mi
Why should a barber, mechanic or whatever be expected to read books about
programming? Your fix makes the sentence easier to read, but only with a
trade-off

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agumonkey
needs more Aho books

also no physics or maths ?

oh and Loomis is everywhere in the drawing list, pretty cool

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lerax
Nice to see SICP growing.

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setr
Outside of the standard literature, those are some of the worst book covers
I've ever seen. I refuse to look into this any further, as I don't trust
reddit's taste anyways.

~~~
ryandrake
Literally judging books by their covers?

~~~
setr
I now go out of my way to do so, in most shopping. I figure if their marketing
team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the rest of the business's
operations. (In the sense that bad marketing implies bad product; good
marketing can go either way)

I mean just compare SICP and TAOCP covers to.. head first *; the latter look
like self-help trash in b&n.

Now O'Reilly, they've got covers you can really believe in

~~~
dna_polymerase
> I figure if their marketing team is tasteless, there's not much hope for the
> rest of the business's operations.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. I can't even think of a
comparison to further illustrate the stupidness of this sentence.

~~~
setr
Its the primary public facing function of a consumer-facing business. Its
really a lot more difficult to argue that they _shouldn 't_ be judged on for
it, when its specifically the main thing a business is _trying_ to be judged
on. The only immediate argument I can think of is that

A) mass marketing is, and should be, frowned upon as a field, due to their use
of extremely abusive strategies

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't appreciate those who advertise well, and
that all of marketing should be frowned upon

B) marketing doesn't imply anything about the business

But in a lot of cases, it does, because they're either in a market where they
should (most consumer products), or they're in a market where there's no need
to (free software, extremely cheap retailers. business to business, non-
finalized products, middlemen like amazon, monoprice, etc). And if they're in
the former, and they pull off a shitshow, I don't see how its reasonable to
_not_ judge them for it.

There's a reason a large chunk of silicon valley puts such a massive strain on
look&feel, UX, and all the shitty css frameworks, despite tech having the
history of not giving the slightest shit.

They've moved into a market where marketing does play a major role, and their
success at it should be indicative of other successes. The backend stuff might
not have to care (but, it turns out, they still do; just a different fashion),
but any final product landing on your phone as an "app" certainly does care,
and they should be judged for trying, and failing.

