Ask HN: What are some must read books for computer programmers?

14 points by apexkid ↗ HN

4 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 16.4 ms ] thread
Gosh, there's so many. But these come to mind:

1. Neuromancer - William Gibson

2. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

3. Hackers - Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy

4. How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard

5. Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter

6. The Pragmatic Programmer - Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas

7. The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder

8. Code - Charles Petzold

9. The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner

10. Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become Book - Peter Morville

11. Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

12. The Design of Everyday Things - Donald A. Norman

13. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - Fred Brooks

14. Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - Ed Yourdon

15. Cube Farm - Bill Blunden

16. The Philip K. Dick Reader

17. The Cuckoo's Egg - Clifford Stoll

18. The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

19. The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene

20. The Atrocity Archives - Charles Stross

21. Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System - Bill Gates

Some choice fiction:

Daemon, by Daniel Suarez

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Gold Bug Variations, by Richard Powers

Galatea 2.2, by Richard Powers

Off to Be the Wizard, by Scott Meyer

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Neuromancer, by William Gibson

The Adolescence Of P-1, by Thomas J. Ryan (from when I was just a kid)