Nick Mudge's Weblog: Programming and Computer Science Books

11 May 2008

I'm looking for the best books in the world on the subjects listed below. They can be beginning books, intermediate or advanced. If you know of other good books on these subjects, that you think maybe should be on this list, please let me know.

Must-Read/Classic

C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman
Art of Computer Programming by Donald E. Knuth

Discrete Math

Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Susanna S. Epp
Concrete Mathematics by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik
Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists by Benjamin C. Pierce

Computer Theory

Computer Science: An Overview by J. Glenn Brookshear
Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser
Introduction to Computer Theory by Daniel I. A. Cohen
Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by John E. Hopcroft, Rajeev Motwani, and Jeffrey D. Ullman

Algorithms

Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein
The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve S. Skiena
Art of Computer Programming by Donald E. Knuth
Algorithms in C by Robert Sedgewick
Purely Functional Data Structures by Chris Okasaki

Compilers

The Art of Compiler Design by Thomas Pittman and James Peters
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman
Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Steven Muchnick
Linkers and Loaders by John R. Levine

Programming Language Theory and Design

Programming Language Pragmatics by Michael L. Scott
Types and Programming Languages by Benjamin C. Pierce
Essentials of Programming Languages by Daniel P. Friedman and Mitchell Wand

Hardware/CPU

Inside the Machine by Jon Stokes
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Operating Systems

Operating Systems Design and Implementation by Andrew S Tanenbaum and Albert S Woodhull
Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Operating System Concepts by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, and Greg Gagne
Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love
Linux Device Drivers by Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman

Assembly

Programming From The Ground Up by Jonathan Bartlett and Dominick, Jr. Bruno
Assembly Language Step-by-Step by Jeff Duntemann

Network Programming

Unix Network Programming, Volume 1 by W. Richard Stevens, Bill Fenner, and Andrew M. Rudoff

Better Programming

Code Complete by Steve McConnell
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John M. Vlissides
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks
Beautiful Code by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson

Comments

Anonymous
11 May 2008

I'd add "Topoi: the categorial analysis of logic", by Robert Goldblatt, to this list. It ties together and explains mathematical concepts (from naive set theory to ZF and NGB to arrows, category theory, heyting calculus and algebras, kripke semantics, and logical geometry) in an amazingly lucid manner. It's truly an underappreciated gem.

It's in print, and also freely available online at http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=math;cc=math;rgn=main;view=text;idno=gold010
(it can be found by going to http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/m/math/# , and then browsing by author, if the above link doesn't work).

John
11 May 2008

ACM recently released several classic books for free on the web

http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=SERIES11430&type=series&coll=ACM&dl=ACM

So maybe just add the whole list :) or a few highlights, like
Smalltalk-80: the language and its implementation
Essays in computing science, Hoare
Dijkstra's stuff

Also, I think you are severly lacking in programming languages. Sure you have C and scheme, but a book about ML or Haskell or Prolog or Erlang or Smalltalk or ....

You should defiantly have
Purely Functional Data Structures by Chris Okasaki
amazing little book.

Also, maybe some books about ML or Haskell
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Books
maybe Haskell School of Expression

Lastly, I think a book on complexity theory, but maybe some of those theory books you listed contain some complexity theory.

Kenn Knowles
kennknowles.com/blog
11 May 2008

I concur with John about "Purely Functional Data Structures" by Okasaki

And all of the following should fall into "Must-Read/Classic" in my opinion, but could be temporarily assigned other topics :-)

Better Programming:
"Algebra of Programming" by Bird and DeMoor

Type Systems:
Types and Programming Languages by Pierce
Proofs and Types by Girard

Nick Mudge
11 May 2008

Thanks! I'm adding some of these. Keep them coming!

Vimal
12 May 2008

The Design of the Unix operating System - Maurice Bach. Amazing book.

thorat
12 May 2008

Better Programming:
"The Practice of Programming" by Kernighan and Pike

Dan Andersson
12 May 2008

Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming' by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi was published in 2004. Too early to be a classic maybe?

Sengan Baring-Gould
www.ansemond.com
13 May 2008

The implementation of Functional Programimng Languages (by Simon Peyton Jones).

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