Five Programming Books That Changed How I Think (adamtornhill.substack.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] emb@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The list:

Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns by Kent Beck

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson

Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming by Peter Norvig

Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert L. Glass

Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie

The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing by Daniel Shiffman

They add that all the books are pre-2015, to give time for assessing whether they really made an impact. The article of course has plenty more explanation if you want the why.

this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026

40 points (95.5% liked)

Programming

28274 readers

252 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

snowe@programming.dev

Ategon@programming.dev

UlrikHD@programming.dev

bugsmith@programming.dev

Spyro@programming.dev