/g/ reading list - GTFIH if you love codecelling

[Foidkiller]

God-tier books​

Read 'em up!
These books are essential books that people should have, or at least have read or know about:

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. A deep dive in how computer physically works. Describes how to make complex circuits out of basic gates, such as RAM and calculator. Explains binary, and describes two real world CPUs as well. Incredibly well explained. (EPUB download)
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools (a.k.a The Dragon Book) by Alfred Aho. This book is loaded with all the theory and concepts needed to design, implement and optimise a compiler. It's the go-to compiler book. (EPUB download)
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (a.k.a the MINIX book) by Andrew Tanenbaum. This is one of the books Linus Torvalds used to write the original Linux kernel. This also contains over 500 pages of the entire MINIX source code at the back as an appendix, and if you're lucky, a MINIX installation CD with instructions. (PDF download)
• The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth (essentially the holy grail of Computer Science literature). Bill Gates said that if anyone can read every volume in TAOCP from cover to cover, then they should definitely send him their CV/Resume. (PDF Vol.1|PDF Vol.2|PDF Vol.3|PDF Vol.4A|PDF Vol.4B)
• The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks Jr. A compilation of essays on what experienced software engineers and programmers have learned from their successes and failures over many years.
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma. Design patterns and principles designed to help object-oriented software.
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric S. Raymond's book on Closed-house development (cathedral) vs open-source, distributed development (bazaar), and how the latter is much more effective.
• The C Programming Language, mentioned below. Also known as K&R because it was written by the founders of C, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, listed below
• The UNIX Programming Environment, 2nd edition An excellent introductory *nix book. Written by Brian Kernighan (of K&R) and Rob Pike (Plan9, Golang), both of whom were part of the Unix team at Bell Labs.
• Advanced UNIX Programming, 2nd Edition Recommended as a follow on book from The UNIX Programming Environment. Contains information on over 300 syscalls.
• The Pragmatic Programmer Cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process—what do you do, as an individual and as a team, if you want to create software that’s easy to work with and good for your users.
• Introduction to Algorithms The book covers a broad range of algorithms in depth, yet makes their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers.
• The Tao of Programming The themes of the book espouse many hacker ideals – managers should leave programmers to their work; code should be small, elegant, and maintainable; corporate wisdom is more often than not an oxymoron; and so on.
• Hacker's Delight It discusses a variety of programming algorithms for common tasks involving integer types, often with the aim of performing the minimum number of operations or replacing slow operations by faster ones.
• Code Complete A compendium of software construction techniques, from naming variables to deciding when to write a subroutine.

Programming resources - InstallGentoo Wiki v2

igwiki.lyci.de

CODE by Charles Petzold the one I would personally recommend the most. It might get you into programming

 

[Naofumi]

Don't care, indian china and africa will be all over this shit in a few years there's no point.

 

[Foidkiller]

Don't care, indian china and africa will be all over this shit in a few years there's no point.

they can't do it as well as white people do
they just take quantity over quality
& inb4 muh AI cope
If it's so good, go use it as a tool to help your progress then

 

[Apollo]

God-tier books​

View attachment 9182Read 'em up!
These books are essential books that people should have, or at least have read or know about:

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. A deep dive in how computer physically works. Describes how to make complex circuits out of basic gates, such as RAM and calculator. Explains binary, and describes two real world CPUs as well. Incredibly well explained. (EPUB download)
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools (a.k.a The Dragon Book) by Alfred Aho. This book is loaded with all the theory and concepts needed to design, implement and optimise a compiler. It's the go-to compiler book. (EPUB download)
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (a.k.a the MINIX book) by Andrew Tanenbaum. This is one of the books Linus Torvalds used to write the original Linux kernel. This also contains over 500 pages of the entire MINIX source code at the back as an appendix, and if you're lucky, a MINIX installation CD with instructions. (PDF download)
• The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth (essentially the holy grail of Computer Science literature). Bill Gates said that if anyone can read every volume in TAOCP from cover to cover, then they should definitely send him their CV/Resume. (PDF Vol.1|PDF Vol.2|PDF Vol.3|PDF Vol.4A|PDF Vol.4B)
• The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks Jr. A compilation of essays on what experienced software engineers and programmers have learned from their successes and failures over many years.
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma. Design patterns and principles designed to help object-oriented software.
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric S. Raymond's book on Closed-house development (cathedral) vs open-source, distributed development (bazaar), and how the latter is much more effective.
• The C Programming Language, mentioned below. Also known as K&R because it was written by the founders of C, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, listed below
• The UNIX Programming Environment, 2nd edition An excellent introductory *nix book. Written by Brian Kernighan (of K&R) and Rob Pike (Plan9, Golang), both of whom were part of the Unix team at Bell Labs.
• Advanced UNIX Programming, 2nd Edition Recommended as a follow on book from The UNIX Programming Environment. Contains information on over 300 syscalls.
• The Pragmatic Programmer Cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process—what do you do, as an individual and as a team, if you want to create software that’s easy to work with and good for your users.
• Introduction to Algorithms The book covers a broad range of algorithms in depth, yet makes their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers.
• The Tao of Programming The themes of the book espouse many hacker ideals – managers should leave programmers to their work; code should be small, elegant, and maintainable; corporate wisdom is more often than not an oxymoron; and so on.
• Hacker's Delight It discusses a variety of programming algorithms for common tasks involving integer types, often with the aim of performing the minimum number of operations or replacing slow operations by faster ones.
• Code Complete A compendium of software construction techniques, from naming variables to deciding when to write a subroutine.

Programming resources - InstallGentoo Wiki v2

igwiki.lyci.de

CODE by Charles Petzold the one I would personally recommend the most. It might get you into programming

God tier list, will take a look most of it, doing CS online

 

[Foidkiller]

God tier list, will take a look most of it, doing CS online

I repeat, CODE by Charles Petzold is the one that amazingly explained to me how computers ever came about to exist in the first place. You could even build your very own CPU from scratch using it as an instruction.

 

[Foidkiller]

Shut up, you should be studying hrt instead

 

[Ain]

The Software foundations is a six volumes series of books, it is mostly about software verification, type theory and such, and to follow it you need to either use Coq or some other automatic theorem prover.

Also Haskell is a weird pick, for most cases it is not good, i would say that Real World OCaml or F# in Action are better choices.

 

[Liquid]

apart from algorithms and data structures I would only read books for more practical, specialized topics

 

[GGWP]

I like the idea of learning to program, but tbh very disillusioned by the radical progress of AI in this domain.
They are starting to make great advances in neuro-morphic and distributed computing for greater efficiency so I doubt anti-AI copers will have a high horse to stand on for long, the latest Claude model is already pretty decent at coding.

Seems like this site is full of Computer Science guys, interesting.

 

[Ain]

I like the idea of learning to program, but tbh very disillusioned by the radical progress of AI in this domain.
They are starting to make great advances in neuro-morphic and distributed computing for greater efficiency so I doubt anti-AI copers will have a high horse to stand on for long, the latest Claude model is already pretty decent at coding.

Seems like this site is full of Computer Science guys, interesting.

I am required to use LLM at my job as a SWE, and it is not good at all, i spend more time fixing the code than writing it, and also when i use it as a search engine i always need to check if it is true. Maybe in the future models will become better, but that is 5 years or even more in the future, seeing that entire ai field is filled with pump and dump tech bros.

LLMs won't replace programmers, because writing code is a part of your job as SWE. And in the future if they become better, SWEs will still have a job, llms will just play a role of a human specifications to code translators and even then you still need to check them and test if the code follows the specification.

If you want to learn to program you can pick Python or F# and write scripts in them to make your life easier.

 

[Foidkiller]

apart from algorithms and data structures I would only read books for more practical, specialized topics

That's what manuals are for, and people prefer them over 'introductory' books

 

[Apollo]

I am required to use LLM at my job as a SWE, and it is not good at all, i spend more time fixing the code than writing it, and also when i use it as a search engine i always need to check if it is true. Maybe in the future models will become better, but that is 5 years or even more in the future, seeing that entire ai field is filled with pump and dump tech bros.

LLMs won't replace programmers, because writing code is a part of your job as SWE. And in the future if they become better, SWEs will still have a job, llms will just play a role of a human specifications to code translators and even then you still need to check them and test if the code follows the specification.

If you want to learn to program you can pick Python or F# and write scripts in them to make your life easier.

what is your degree btw

 

[Foidkiller]

what is your degree btw

irrelevant

 

[Ain]

what is your degree btw

BA in EE and then I got into programming and CS on my own, will go for MA in CS soon.

 

[Apollo]

BA in EE and then I got into programming and CS on my own, will go for MA in CS soon.

Did EE served kinda for everything? Heard a youtuber saying that its better than a business major, also can go to trades, programming etc.
You did the open source CS?

 

[Ain]

Did EE served kinda for everything? Heard a youtuber saying that its better than a business major, also can go to trades, programming etc.
You did the open source CS?

It depends on what kind of EE, mine was all over the place, a lot of physics and math, plus programming both C and assembly. I started learning about CS before getting the EE degree, but i was not that good and also too young to understand that i should have gone for a CS degree. After getting BA, I spend some time working as an EE, but the pay wasn't good and I understood that I enjoy programming, so I went to a bootcamp and got a certificate, and 6 months later I got a job, fully remote working for a bank.

>Did EE served kinda for everything?
I would say that I learned how to be an engineer while studying, and that is a great trait, many CS students don't really understand what being an engineer means.

If you go for EE you can go for anything that is about electronics to be honest, both programming, circuit design and etc.
You can earn very very good money if you study EE and analog electronics, most of digital circuits are done using languages like Verilog (I studied it) or HDL. But you can't really do the same with analog circuits. They are more complicated and their design is closer to an art.
And analog can pay really good because there are few people who go for it, it is a niche thing, but for example the best music players are all analog, some systems can't be created with digital ciruits.

 

[Ain]

God-tier books​

View attachment 9182Read 'em up!
These books are essential books that people should have, or at least have read or know about:

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. A deep dive in how computer physically works. Describes how to make complex circuits out of basic gates, such as RAM and calculator. Explains binary, and describes two real world CPUs as well. Incredibly well explained. (EPUB download)
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools (a.k.a The Dragon Book) by Alfred Aho. This book is loaded with all the theory and concepts needed to design, implement and optimise a compiler. It's the go-to compiler book. (EPUB download)
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (a.k.a the MINIX book) by Andrew Tanenbaum. This is one of the books Linus Torvalds used to write the original Linux kernel. This also contains over 500 pages of the entire MINIX source code at the back as an appendix, and if you're lucky, a MINIX installation CD with instructions. (PDF download)
• The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth (essentially the holy grail of Computer Science literature). Bill Gates said that if anyone can read every volume in TAOCP from cover to cover, then they should definitely send him their CV/Resume. (PDF Vol.1|PDF Vol.2|PDF Vol.3|PDF Vol.4A|PDF Vol.4B)
• The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks Jr. A compilation of essays on what experienced software engineers and programmers have learned from their successes and failures over many years.
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma. Design patterns and principles designed to help object-oriented software.
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric S. Raymond's book on Closed-house development (cathedral) vs open-source, distributed development (bazaar), and how the latter is much more effective.
• The C Programming Language, mentioned below. Also known as K&R because it was written by the founders of C, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, listed below
• The UNIX Programming Environment, 2nd edition An excellent introductory *nix book. Written by Brian Kernighan (of K&R) and Rob Pike (Plan9, Golang), both of whom were part of the Unix team at Bell Labs.
• Advanced UNIX Programming, 2nd Edition Recommended as a follow on book from The UNIX Programming Environment. Contains information on over 300 syscalls.
• The Pragmatic Programmer Cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process—what do you do, as an individual and as a team, if you want to create software that’s easy to work with and good for your users.
• Introduction to Algorithms The book covers a broad range of algorithms in depth, yet makes their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers.
• The Tao of Programming The themes of the book espouse many hacker ideals – managers should leave programmers to their work; code should be small, elegant, and maintainable; corporate wisdom is more often than not an oxymoron; and so on.
• Hacker's Delight It discusses a variety of programming algorithms for common tasks involving integer types, often with the aim of performing the minimum number of operations or replacing slow operations by faster ones.
• Code Complete A compendium of software construction techniques, from naming variables to deciding when to write a subroutine.

Programming resources - InstallGentoo Wiki v2

igwiki.lyci.de

CODE by Charles Petzold the one I would personally recommend the most. It might get you into programming

Also the Dragon book is quite big and requires additional knowledge, I would say that Crafting Interpreters by Gilbert Russell, is an easier starting point for people that want to know how compilation/interpretation happens and everything in-between. I am currently reading it again.

 

[Ultimate Subhuman]

Imagine Reading all this & being Out-classed by an AI Model

 

[Foidkiller]

Imagine Reading all this & being Out-classed by an AI Model

it's for fun

 

[Ain]

Imagine Reading all this & being Out-classed by an AI Model

That will never happened desu. It is like saying that imagine learning how to draw or doing anything at all. SWEs will never be replaced by LLMs because at the end of the day you still need humans from prompting, to verifying the produced code, to testing it and looking for bugs. And llms usually cant solve novel tasks, and even tasks that are slightly harder than basic CRUD app.

 

[Apollo]

Also the Dragon book is quite big and requires additional knowledge, I would say that Crafting Interpreters by Gilbert Russell, is an easier starting point for people that want to know how compilation/interpretation happens and everything in-between. I am currently reading it again.

What a absolute chad