Do you have a favorite programming book and if so, what is it?
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
"The C Programming Language" 1st edition 1978 by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. it's absence of restrictions and it's generality. notable mentions "Foundations of Python Network Programming" 2004 by John Goerzen "The Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript" 2004 by Nicholas C. Zakas
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
-
'C' Programming, K & R, first edition.
-
The dragon book is in the running for me but minus points because it could have been written to be far more accessible.
Real programmers use butterflies
K&R from decades gone by.
“If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes”
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
Back in the office I have a half dozenish of them. Several are stacked under the non-height adjustable monitor I left there back in march (I liked my spare monitor at home better), and the other half were used to put my laptop screen at a similar height to my monitors (at home I'm using a 6-pack of Coke :-\ ).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
-
I was going to say Clean Code by Robert C. Martin but Sander beat me to it, so I'm gonna go with [Specifying Systems by Leslie Lamport](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/book.html). Not only is it a really interesting book but it's also pretty good for brushing up on discrete mathematics.
I read Leslie Nielsen because I didn't expect to see any other Leslie on CP. Had to read it twice :laugh:
Best, Sander Azure Serverless Succinctly Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
-
I was thinking about that just the other day. "Code" by Charles Petzold.
I found Code to be amazing for the first half of the book, but it lost clarity for me in the second half. It just seemed that he lost the desire to make his more advanced information approachable. "Qulatiy is Job #1"
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
The C Programming Language by Kernigan and Ritchie I read this book in mid 80's and it was inspirational to me. At that time I had an Amiga, with Aztec C Compiler and used this book to travel through the mechanics of programming. Very well explained and not too much technical (… sure?). But for me, this book was a trap, because C is in itself a very hard matter to learn well and those guys put it as a if it was like a stroll on a farm and not like climbing the Everest.
The day you do not learn something new, is a wasted day!
-
For me, it's a toss up between Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language, and Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger's The AWK Programming Language. Other books I remember from college days include Fortran IV With Watfor and Watfiv, and a two book set of Shelley & Cashman on Cobol. Those are all still around, somewhere in the attic, along with a lot of seriously outdated hardware. I know there's a 300 baud modem with the acoustic couplers for a standard Bell desk phone's handset up there, and a couple of cases of 80-column cards.
Plus one for this choice: Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language I taught myself C by reading and re-reading the second edition and everything was approachable, right through the end. "Qulatiy is Job #1"
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
-
Not that I reading it anymore, but have a special place for my copy of PC Intern - System Programming by Michael Tischer... It is about DOS so mostly irrelevant, but I've learned a lot about how to see things from that book...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
For nostalgia, I still have IBM's Guide to Operations, and Technical Reference, for the PC; which included a source listing of the BIOS, printer codes, memory addresses, etc. Now you just go and buy a chip.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
-
I haven't touched it in a few decades but Starting Forth by Leo Brodie. And yes I am old!
Wow, Forth. There's a blast from the past! Unlike Cobol, I don't usually hear a lot about old software written in Forth. I can't remember the last time I've even heard it. :)
Real programmers use butterflies
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
Dan Appleman's Developing COM/ActiveX Components With Visual Basic 6. That book launched my career and did more to help me understand COM/ActiveX than anything else at the time. It didn't help me so much with C++ when I started learning it, but it helped me understand what I was trying to do with it at the time by quite a bit.
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
"A Discipline of Programming" by Dijkstra. He says in just a few pages what Knuth takes five volumes to express. https://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Programming-Edsger-W-Dijkstra/dp/013215871X/[^]
-
Mine would be Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara Moo. It's mercifully short, and it teaches C++ the Right Way(TM) - the way Bjarne intended it to be used, and how it works best. It's suitable for beginners to C++ and in fact I recommend it for teaching C++, and it's the only one I'll recommend for that.
Real programmers use butterflies
-
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
"Code" by Charles Petzold.
It's an amazing book that helps tie software and hardware all together. I've learned stuff in that book that you cannot learn anywhere else. I guess maybe in high-level university courses maybe.
You might enjoy the Nand to Tetris courses and the book that goes with them: nand2tetris[^] The cover some of the same territory as Code but along the way you actually created a simulated computer and by the end of the whole thing, you're able to run Tetris on it.
-
Wow, Forth. There's a blast from the past! Unlike Cobol, I don't usually hear a lot about old software written in Forth. I can't remember the last time I've even heard it. :)
Real programmers use butterflies
At one of the places I worked at I selected Forth (multitasking version I wrote) as an intermediate language. The PC would compile flow charts into Forth text files which would be downloaded to an industrial controller where the Forth interpreter/compile would compile it to machine code. Their system still uses it today.
-
I'm not one for books, but if I had to pick one (besides my own, of course) I'd go with Robert C. Martin's Clean Code. That book changed the way I write and think about code. The beauty is that it applies to all languages that were, are or will ever be used, although it uses Java for examples. Come to think of it, if a Java book is my favorite it has to be REALLY VERY GOOD! :~
Best, Sander Azure Serverless Succinctly Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
C: A Reference Manual - by Harbison & Steele is what Kernighan & Ritchie wished they had written. It is superb. Cheerios
-
C: A Reference Manual - by Harbison & Steele is what Kernighan & Ritchie wished they had written. It is superb. Cheerios
You may have replied to the wrong message because my post was neither about C nor Kernighan & Ritchie ;)
Best, Sander Azure Serverless Succinctly Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
