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Five Programming Books That Changed How I Think (adamtornhill.substack.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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[-] emb@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The list:

  1. Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns by Kent Beck

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

  3. Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming by Peter Norvig

  4. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert L. Glass

  5. Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie

  6. 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.

[-] limer@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago

In the 1990s, the book that got me excited was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Perl.

It was the right time, the right book, for me. Probably many other books would have had the same affect on me, if I had read them instead that month. But it made me laugh and think

[-] emb@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Similar for me actually. I don't know if it was this book or another one. (The one I read implemented trig functions in a later chapter.)

But by early-mid aughts when I was curious about programming, I found a perl book that was available to read online for free. Never did use much Perl after that, but learned to think that way.

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 6 points 2 weeks ago

For me it was:

  • Etudes for Programmers
  • Software Architects Handbook
  • Tidy First
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
40 points (95.5% liked)

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