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[flagged] Most-recommended programming books (daolf.com)
88 points by known on April 3, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 22 comments



>Best programming books of all-time

>Methodology:

>I’ve simply asked Google for a few queries like “Best Programming Books” and its variations of.

And then every one of those links is an Amazon referral URL.

This seems at best a low effort attempt to turn over a couple dollars.


I agree, this should be spam.


There's every month here and on reddit such lists with best programming books, I guess it's profitable to recommend them?


I think this is a good example of confusing "popular" with "best".

Having read over half of those books, the only one I would ever come back to and read again and again with a smile on my face and a feeling of childlike wonder and intellectual curiosity is SICP (number 18).


Surely number 19 is among the best class, although the idea of reading it more than once may be limited by how long you have to live.


19 was "The Art of Computer Programming", by Knuth.

I owned a copy of this, but I only used it as a reference once or twice. Sadly it didn't survive my emigration.

I don't think I've ever met anybody who has read the whole thing, and if somebody told me they had I'd assume they were lying.


TAOCP is a very good reference book, and I think very few people would have ever read it cover to cover, but it is good if you want to look up an algorithm. For example, I went through the hash table chapter while doing assignments for a course while trying to optimize my implementation.


I don't think Knuth put those together expecting people to read through them like a novel.

They are, however, an excellent reference when you are faced with a practical algorithmic problem in a real world production situation in that they will often yield a direct solution to your headache on a platter and allow you to carry on with your day.


I think Clean Code is a bit overrated. I got the book, and while some of the advice is sound, especially from OOP perspective design, a big part of the book is solving JavaEE specific issues, which don't translate well to other languages.


Uncle Bob is overrated. He's the personal embodiment of the "for dummies" series of the industry. Quick to say what everything should look like, he's given many people a false sense of direction by making no mention of all the reasons why something shouldn't look like that. If you're reading Uncle Bob material and not scratching your head a bit thinking "are you sure that's right?", do yourself a favor and go find some Fowler material instead.


Those popular vote ratings are mostly useless. What I really would like to see for instance is the books most favored by those who enjoyed SICP and who thinks the `Uncle Bob` books are garbage.


In this category, I strongly recommend Art of the Meta-Object Protocol. I've been through it 5 times now, and each time it bends my brain in a completely new way.


Mandatory comment: Omg no K&R?


Nisan and Schocken's "The elements of computing systems" should be on this list. I'd have it at number 1


Most-recommended programming books is very misleading. This is a list of software development lifecycle management books.


Should be titled; "Most recommended programming books for non-programmers"


Dreaming in Code is good too.

Clean Code is overrated imo.

I would never advice anyone to read about pattern and pratices before they can actually program in a fairly decent abstract domain.




Nice list, thanks for sharing

+ https://books.goalkicker.com


That is an amazing resource!


I'm putting together books on startups as well. You can check em out here https://www.startuplit.com




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