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digitalmars.D - What Programming Book Should I Read Next?

reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/

Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!
Jul 26 2014
next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On the topic of professional growth, I was asked this week in a 
work meeting what I think I can do for mine.... and I didn't 
really have an answer.

Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm kinda 
maxed out as a programmer. Sure, there's a handful of specific 
things (like framework method names) I don't know and some 
concepts I don't know the names of, but as for like revolutionary 
new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned anything like 
that directly related to programming for a pretty long time.

Then I was asked what about team dynamics and stuff... but even 
there, I've been doing this a pretty long time now. You know what 
I spend most my time talking about with my programming co-worker? 
Recipe swapping and church stuff. And I don't mean D Cookbook 
recipes, i mean stuff like baking bread and pies. We're both 
pretty good at our day jobs and tend to be on the same page on 
work related stuff more often than not anyway.
Jul 26 2014
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 7/26/2014 4:42 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On the topic of professional growth, I was asked this week in a work meeting
 what I think I can do for mine.... and I didn't really have an answer.

 Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm kinda maxed out as
a
 programmer. Sure, there's a handful of specific things (like framework method
 names) I don't know and some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for
like
 revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned anything like
 that directly related to programming for a pretty long time.

 Then I was asked what about team dynamics and stuff... but even there, I've
been
 doing this a pretty long time now. You know what I spend most my time talking
 about with my programming co-worker? Recipe swapping and church stuff. And I
 don't mean D Cookbook recipes, i mean stuff like baking bread and pies. We're
 both pretty good at our day jobs and tend to be on the same page on work
related
 stuff more often than not anyway.


Interestingly, I've been programming for 40 years, and I'm constantly learning 
new ways of programming. It's a combination of experience, changing hardware, 
and new ideas.

The Warp program I did for FB, for example, is pretty unlike anything I've 
written before in the way it's put together.
Jul 26 2014
parent reply "H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:56:20PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On 7/26/2014 4:42 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

On the topic of professional growth, I was asked this week in a work
meeting what I think I can do for mine.... and I didn't really have
an answer.




[...]

 Interestingly, I've been programming for 40 years, and I'm constantly
 learning new ways of programming. It's a combination of experience,
 changing hardware, and new ideas.
 
 The Warp program I did for FB, for example, is pretty unlike anything
 I've written before in the way it's put together.


I've to say, that learning D and contributing to D has greatly expanded
my programming horizons. I've been doing C/C++ for about 2 decades, and
about 8 years ago I felt I'd started to taper off in terms of learning
new things in programming. Until I found D, that is. D made hard /
complex things in C++ easy, and opened up new horizons -- like weak
purity, range-based component programming, new possibilities in
metaprogramming, etc..

Contributing to Phobos was also quite eye-opening in learning about
novel ways of handling common tasks in a standard library. I daresay I
learned more contributing to Phobos than from my full-time job (mainly C
with some C++ and a smattering of Javascript, PHP, and some other
stuff).


T

-- 
They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work. -- Russian saying
Jul 26 2014
next sibling parent "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 01:00:34 UTC, H. S. Teoh via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:56:20PM -0700, Walter Bright via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On 7/26/2014 4:42 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

On the topic of professional growth, I was asked this week in 
a work
meeting what I think I can do for mine.... and I didn't 
really have
an answer.




 [...]

 Interestingly, I've been programming for 40 years, and I'm 
 constantly
 learning new ways of programming. It's a combination of 
 experience,
 changing hardware, and new ideas.
 
 The Warp program I did for FB, for example, is pretty unlike 
 anything
 I've written before in the way it's put together.


 I've to say, that learning D and contributing to D has greatly 
 expanded
 my programming horizons. I've been doing C/C++ for about 2 
 decades, and
 about 8 years ago I felt I'd started to taper off in terms of 
 learning
 new things in programming. Until I found D, that is. D made 
 hard /
 complex things in C++ easy, and opened up new horizons -- like 
 weak
 purity, range-based component programming, new possibilities in
 metaprogramming, etc..

 Contributing to Phobos was also quite eye-opening in learning 
 about
 novel ways of handling common tasks in a standard library. I 
 daresay I
 learned more contributing to Phobos than from my full-time job 
 (mainly C
 with some C++ and a smattering of Javascript, PHP, and some 
 other
 stuff).


 T


For me is actually thanks to my interest in compiler development 
while at the university, that I keep on.

I got/get to read so many papers, programming manuals and design 
rationales that I keep on learning about how to structure code, 
algorithms and lots of other nice stuff.


--
Paulo
Jul 26 2014
prev sibling parent reply Jim Hewes <jimhewes gmail.com> writes:
On 7/26/2014 5:58 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 I've to say, that learning D and contributing to D has greatly expanded
 my programming horizons. I've been doing C/C++ for about 2 decades, and
 about 8 years ago I felt I'd started to taper off in terms of learning
 new things in programming. Until I found D, that is. D made hard /
 complex things in C++ easy, and opened up new horizons -- like weak
 purity, range-based component programming, new possibilities in
 metaprogramming, etc..

 Contributing to Phobos was also quite eye-opening in learning about
 novel ways of handling common tasks in a standard library. I daresay I
 learned more contributing to Phobos than from my full-time job (mainly C
 with some C++ and a smattering of Javascript, PHP, and some other
 stuff).


 T


Sorry if this is too off-topic, please tell me if so. As I read the D 
newsgroup I notice that a lot of you guys who are really quite 
knowledgeable about languages are doing things like C programming as a 
day job.

I recently (like 2 weeks ago) resigned my current job of over 10 years. 
One of the reasons is that the work has veered too far from why I got 
into this career in the first place. The code for the product, in C++, 
has been largely finished (by me) so the only coding I do is small 
modifications to it. Mostly what I do now is what follows that: 
customizations for OEM customers, Windows installers, rebuilding the 
product, testing, testing, certification testing. There are more issues, 
but I'll spare you :-).

I do try to learn more about things like Haskell and D and 
meta-programming and ranges, etc., but there isn't so much time when 
your regular job takes up over 40 hours a week.  With programming, I 
feel like you can read about something but you can't really be 
proficient at it until you use it hands-on and practice it regularly. So 
I think it helps to try to find a job where you can do some of that 
during work time. I hope to do that. But then I read here where a lot of 
you guys have day jobs not even doing C++ but C programming, I feel like 
some of you are in the same boat, and more so because you're more 
knowledgeable than me.

So how do you feel about that?

Jim
Jul 27 2014
parent "Dicebot" <public dicebot.lv> writes:
On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 15:15:31 UTC, Jim Hewes wrote:

 I do try to learn more about things like Haskell and D and 
 meta-programming and ranges, etc., but there isn't so much time 
 when your regular job takes up over 40 hours a week.  With 
 programming, I feel like you can read about something but you 
 can't really be proficient at it until you use it hands-on and 
 practice it regularly. So I think it helps to try to find a job 
 where you can do some of that during work time. I hope to do 
 that. But then I read here where a lot of you guys have day 
 jobs not even doing C++ but C programming, I feel like some of 
 you are in the same boat, and more so because you're more 
 knowledgeable than me.

 So how do you feel about that?

 Jim


Ironically after D has become part of my daily job I have found 
myself being less capable of contribution / participation :) 
Before it always felt like relief - being able to hack some nice 
D stuff after boring daily C routine. But now I more often find 
myself wanting to try something different simply for the sake of 
change.
Jul 27 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= writes:
On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:42:33 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm 
 kinda maxed out as a programmer. Sure, there's a handful of 
 specific things (like framework method names) I don't know and 
 some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for like 
 revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned 
 anything like that directly related to programming for a pretty 
 long time.


Really? I've realized a long time ago that there is more to learn 
than can possibly be internalized. Now, books that label 
themselves as programming books are not the best source. You need 
more narrow sources.

Even a narrow field as computer graphics is way too big to master 
fully. Then you have logic programming languages / database 
engines, constraints programming, term rewriting, concurrency, 
verifiable programming, a plethora of event based programming 
paradigms, AI...

And then you can move on to philosophies of different types of 
modelling, semantics etc.

Even in basic web pogramming things are getting complex: 
efficient scalable modelling on nosql databases, how to get the 
best split between server client on modern browsers, how to 
utilize the various engines in the browser...
Jul 27 2014
parent "Gary Willoughby" <dev nomad.so> writes:
On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 07:13:10 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
wrote:

 Really? I've realized a long time ago that there is more to 
 learn than can possibly be internalized.


That's the big realisation of any good programmer. I used to 
think i was pretty good until stackoverflow.com opened. Boy was i 
wrong. It suddenly hit me i knew nothing. Even after fifteen 
years in software i still feel i have way too much to learn. Even 
visiting this newsgroup i feel like a total amateur and learn 
loads reading posts.

I've worked with people who honestly believe they are awesome 
programmers and have mastered their craft, when in reality they 
don't even understand bit-shifting or what the modulus operator 
is for. Being humble is the only way to grow being a developer.

As for books, here are some of the best books i've read and 
encourage anyone here to take a look. (but you've probably read 
em already.)

The Pragmatic Programmer
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pragmatic-Programmer-Andrew-Hunt/dp/020161622X

Code Complete
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670/

Some Head First books:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Object-Oriented-Analysis-Design/dp/0596008678/

All these books really opened my eyes and improved my coding no 
end.
Jul 27 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On 27/07/14 01:42, Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm kinda maxed out as
a
 programmer. Sure, there's a handful of specific things (like framework method
 names) I don't know and some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for
like
 revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned anything like
 that directly related to programming for a pretty long time.


There are many ways to grow, and the most important one need not necessarily be 
programming.

Personally, I tend to find that growth as a programmer tends to come as a 
consequence of problems that need to be solved with programming.  Reading about 
new ideas and techniques is great -- of course I do this -- but it's actually 
finding a problem of my own that they are relevant to which really makes them 
sink in and allows me to feel their value.

Then there's things that are not programming per se but that feed into it --
the 
research literature on many different topics, or topics such as the social and 
psychological dynamics of how people use software, or collaborate on software, 
or interact when using software.  Or, as Walter has already pointed out, the 
ways in which new hardware, and new hardware environments, change the ways in 
which software can be written and needs to be written.

Put another way, while sometimes it's useful to think of programming in a 
somewhat isolated or theoretical sense, most of the time I find it more 
inspiring to think about the whole range of things that programming interacts
with.

And of course, ultimately, sometimes it is very good to take a break from 
learning more in a particular area and go and work on other things for a while. 
  We all need fun, and we all need stimulus that comes from unexpected things 
that are not part of our habitual activities.
Jul 27 2014
parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 11:35:31 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling 
via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 There are many ways to grow, and the most important one need 
 not necessarily be programming.


everyone tells me i need to get married :<


 Personally, I tend to find that growth as a programmer tends to 
 come as a consequence of problems that need to be solved with 
 programming.


Yeah, I would agree with that.
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Peter Alexander" <peter.alexander.au gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:42:33 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm 
 kinda maxed out as a programmer. Sure, there's a handful of 
 specific things (like framework method names) I don't know and 
 some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for like 
 revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned 
 anything like that directly related to programming for a pretty 
 long time.


I suppose it depends on what "related to programming" means. I 
presume you, like everyone else, could not write a general 
purpose AI, so we all still have that to learn. I'm guessing 
you'd classify that as more of an application rather than being 
directly related to programming?

The applications are where most of the fun is. There's so many 
algorithms, concepts, and theories to learn. I don't think I'll 
ever stop. Even with things directly-related-to-programming, 
there's lots for me to learn. I know very little about all the 
Haskell-level category theory stuff, and I really should spend 
some time to play with things like Forth to see what all the fuss 
is about there. I'm sure there are still many gems to discover.
Jul 28 2014
next sibling parent reply "Kagamin" <spam here.lot> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 07:42:39 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:

 I suppose it depends on what "related to programming" means. I 
 presume you, like everyone else, could not write a general 
 purpose AI, so we all still have that to learn.


Why write it? Just give birth to a child.
Jul 28 2014
next sibling parent "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 11:32:15 UTC, Kagamin wrote:

 On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 07:42:39 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:

 I suppose it depends on what "related to programming" means. I 
 presume you, like everyone else, could not write a general 
 purpose AI, so we all still have that to learn.


 Why write it? Just give birth to a child.


Humans are boring, we've got plenty of them already. Make 
something new, something different :)
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 11:32:15 UTC, Kagamin wrote:

 Why write it? Just give birth to a child.


Giving birth would indeed be a new experience for me!
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 07:42:39 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:

 I suppose it depends on what "related to programming" means. I 
 presume you, like everyone else, could not write a general 
 purpose AI, so we all still have that to learn.


Yeah, I'm defining it as basically something non-trivial that is 
to be learned by picking up a new programming language. There was 
a period where there was much I picked up that way - especially 
around seven years ago when I was doing Lisp, D for the first 
time, stuff like that. I could get on a bi-weekly meeting then 
and report all kinds of stuff. I kinda get macros now, I kinda 
get purity, but now the rate has slowed significantly.


 The applications are where most of the fun is.


depends on the applications :P
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling parent reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:42:33 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On the topic of professional growth, I was asked this week in a 
 work meeting what I think I can do for mine.... and I didn't 
 really have an answer.

 Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm 
 kinda maxed out as a programmer. Sure, there's a handful of 
 specific things (like framework method names) I don't know and 
 some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for like 
 revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned 
 anything like that directly related to programming for a pretty 
 long time.

 Then I was asked what about team dynamics and stuff... but even 
 there, I've been doing this a pretty long time now. You know 
 what I spend most my time talking about with my programming 
 co-worker? Recipe swapping and church stuff. And I don't mean D 
 Cookbook recipes, i mean stuff like baking bread and pies. 
 We're both pretty good at our day jobs and tend to be on the 
 same page on work related stuff more often than not anyway.


How's your mathematics and numerical analysis? There are always 
new horizons.
Jul 28 2014
parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 09:22:29 UTC, John Colvin wrote:

 How's your mathematics and numerical analysis? There are always 
 new horizons.


I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the 
scientific names of beings animalcules, in short in matters 
vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern 
major general.
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:23:23PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/
 
 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


What about TDPL? Even though it's somewhat dated, it *was* what finally
drove me to non-trivial programming in D.


T

-- 
People tell me that I'm skeptical, but I don't believe it.
Jul 26 2014
next sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 7/26/2014 4:26 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:23:23PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/

 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


 What about TDPL? Even though it's somewhat dated, it *was* what finally
 drove me to non-trivial programming in D.


I also posted Ali's book because it was free, and so people wouldn't be 
complaining about posting spam links. Not that that stopped a couple
complainers :-)
Jul 26 2014
prev sibling parent reply David Gileadi <gileadis NSPMgmail.com> writes:
On 7/26/14, 4:26 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:23:23PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/

 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


 What about TDPL? Even though it's somewhat dated, it *was* what finally
 drove me to non-trivial programming in D.


I am, alas, still a D dabbler, but I'm a huge fan of Andrei's book. It's 
not just the fantastic content, it's also the engaging style. I like it 
so well that I read it once in a while just for enjoyment.
Jul 28 2014
parent reply "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 14:22:01 UTC, David Gileadi wrote:

 On 7/26/14, 4:26 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:23:23PM -0700, Walter Bright via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/

 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


 What about TDPL? Even though it's somewhat dated, it *was* 
 what finally
 drove me to non-trivial programming in D.


 I am, alas, still a D dabbler, but I'm a huge fan of Andrei's 
 book. It's not just the fantastic content, it's also the 
 engaging style. I like it so well that I read it once in a 
 while just for enjoyment.


Honestly, what I like the most about TDPL is that it assumes that 
you already know how to program. It's not out to teach you how to 
program. It's out to teach you how to program in D. That was 
_incredibly_ refreshing to me. I can understand why so many 
language primers assume that you don't know much about how to 
program in any language, but I find it incredibly frustrating 
that they do that, and it makes it that much harder for me to get 
myself to read them - and I'm the kind of guy who likes to read 
the whole instruction manual before doing anything.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jul 28 2014
parent Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On 29/07/2014 1:18 p.m., Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Monday, 28 July 2014 at 14:22:01 UTC, David Gileadi wrote:

 On 7/26/14, 4:26 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 04:23:23PM -0700, Walter Bright via
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/


 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


 What about TDPL? Even though it's somewhat dated, it *was* what finally
 drove me to non-trivial programming in D.


 I am, alas, still a D dabbler, but I'm a huge fan of Andrei's book.
 It's not just the fantastic content, it's also the engaging style. I
 like it so well that I read it once in a while just for enjoyment.


 Honestly, what I like the most about TDPL is that it assumes that you
 already know how to program. It's not out to teach you how to program.
 It's out to teach you how to program in D. That was _incredibly_
 refreshing to me. I can understand why so many language primers assume
 that you don't know much about how to program in any language, but I
 find it incredibly frustrating that they do that, and it makes it that
 much harder for me to get myself to read them - and I'm the kind of guy
 who likes to read the whole instruction manual before doing anything.

 - Jonathan M Davis


I'm similar with how I learn programming languages, except I drown 
myself in the language almost quite literally. Lets do the most complex 
task first! Like setting up build management and get packages installed. 
Then go read the documentation and specifications.

Hence I love a 'getting started' guide for all the common things. From 
here's a commonly used industry standard IDE, this is our build manager 
to here's a PDF which is our specifications!

We're really missing that getting started guide. Everything else is 
slowly getting there.
Jul 28 2014
prev sibling parent "Israel Rodriguez" <tl12000 live.com> writes:
On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:23:26 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bt8a5/what_programming_book_should_i_read_next/

 Ali's book is the latest, so I posted that one!


Its hard to admit but it is sometimes true. Needing a book to 
learn is not always the right way to go not because of the book 
itself but because of the author.

Knowing something and being able to teach it in layman terms, are 
two completely different arts...
Jul 26 2014