Recommendations you can check.
by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
Who uses, recommends or left The C Programming Language, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.
3 people
The C Programming Language - I've finally gotten to the point in my career where I can appreciate the elegance of this book.
Her 'Favorite books of 2024' post, where she tries to balance technical reading with fiction.
2024-12-31·vickiboykis.com ↗
What can one say about this book, that hasn't been said already? Perhaps this: that of all the books written about programming, this has the highest information density of them all. And yet it's so pleasant to read. There is something about the tone of this book — the way the authors speak to you. They explain everything, and yet never seem patronizing or condescending. The joy they feel for their craft — it really does seem like this book comes from a time when programming was a craft — is unmistakable. Many of today's programmers — web developers, iOS developers, front-end engineers — may have no need to ever read this book. But for those who have not done so, and really want to improve as programmers, work through this book. It's a rite of passage.
A post written after colleagues asked him which programming books had shaped him most.
2016-11-25·philipotoole.com ↗
This is an odd little book. It's frequently mistaken for an introductory programming book, which inevitably leads to frustration.
His 'Ten Great Books' post (Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants), introduced as 'ten books that I really enjoyed, and that I'd recommend to anyone who's a computer programmer', limited to books he has finished and rereads. The page carries no publication date; the only date on it is an inline note dated 12/13/2004, so the post is from 2004 or earlier.
2010-04-15·sites.google.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.