My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Four

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-100-books-part-four/

by noobie • 11 years ago

91 15 11 years ago

catonmat.net

esaym• 11 years ago

And he is a Perl lover! Sweet!

nextos3• 11 years ago

I really like many of the books he has posted.

I'd definitely rate CTM in the top 2 programming books I've ever read. I think it's the modern sequel to SICP and it doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves (due to the choice of Mozart/Oz I guess).

Hascheme• 11 years ago

What are the pros and cons of CTM as compared to SICP? The latter is very "tight"(like most math texts) for lack of a better word. I find programming (even academical ones) books a bit tiring to read because they don't proceed like typical math texts: very concise explanation -> lemma -> theorem -> proof -> corollary -> very concise elaboration. I get lost if a textbook is not written in that "tight" format. Is CTM close in spirit to SICP? Thanks.

nextos3• 11 years ago

It's pretty mathematical. In some respects, it contains more CS formalisms than SICP---but it's not too hardcore.

For example, last chapter defines all the operational semantics of their language.

Mind the authors come from the logic programming community, so the book is quite tight.

abecedarius• 11 years ago

You can check out a preprint version free online. (Google suggests http://www.epsa.org/forms/uploadFiles/3B6300000000.filename.... though I can't trivially tell if that's the author's official free version, since the official book site has some https problem Firefox is complaining to me about.)

stiff• 11 years ago

SICP explores real, interesting programs: a digital circuit simulator, an automatic differentiator, etc., in a sense it explores mathematics and electrical engineering in parallel to computer science and shows a certain unity between all three disciplines, at the cost of requiring more background to understand everything.

CTM explores a lot more programming language concepts than SICP, but the examples and exercises seem to be focused on illustrating those individual concepts in the simplest way possible. I think CTM is ultimately a more down-to-the earth book - you are likely to have more immediate direct use for the things you learn compared to SICP, but it doesn't give you this very high level perspective that SICP does.

kzhahou• 11 years ago

CTM, since it's not in the referenced article:

http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Techniques-Models-Computer-Pr...

rdc12• 11 years ago

Glad too see that I am not the only person to quite excited about the The Little Prover. Don't think I have ever felt this way about the release of a CS book.

ghosthamlet2• 11 years ago

I am so sorry, but The Little/Seasoned ... books are all bad books, they are repeating all the time, but they are NOT Iliad, NOT Odyssey, NOT HOMER epic at all. The little schemer and and The Seasoned Schemer I have both read two times , but all can't hold to end. I have read SICP, Simply Scheme, the realm of racket，Practical Common lisp, the joy of clojure, they are all the best, i like them and learned many more from them. Yes i also have learned some thing from The little ... books, but very little compared to 600 pages, indeed if the 600 pages three books can compress to a 100 pages book, then it will be good, may be a best book like many best programmer says, but they didn't do that, they will be 600 pages full of stupid stars and senseless talks forever, so i say they are the worst classic programming books i have read. I really don't know why why the adult human will like the little ..., the little ... are not HOMER epic, how did they repeat and repeat and repeat at pains? Beacuse that seems fun? that seems like fairy tales? I think no, i love Narnia series, Andersen storys, BUT i hate all the little ... books. I don't think i am the only one in the world hate them, but love SICP HOMER epic and Narnia. Please tell why you hate or like the little ... books, or if you can change my thought. I want to know.

ulrikrasmussen• 11 years ago

I did not know about "proofs without words", it looks brilliant!

Zolomon2• 11 years ago

I am wondering if this is just a simple hack to generate some passive income by having 10 blog posts filled with reference links to the book sites on Amazon. Food for thought. shrugs

Zolomon2• 11 years ago

Why the downvotes?

ghosthamlet2• 11 years ago

The little... books are just different, not fun.

sciencesama• 11 years ago

nice blog list also the networking top down approach is a really important book also a book on how linux works with the networking is great as well (http://www.amazon.com/TCP-Architecture-Design-Implementation... )

My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Four

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