this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
32 points (97.1% liked)

Books

6836 readers
70 users here now

A community for all things related to Books.

Rules

  1. Be Nice. No personal attacks or hate speech.
  2. No spam. All posts should be related to books.
  3. No self promotion.

Official Bingo Posts:

Related Communities

Community icon by IconsBox (from freepik.com)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Not just coding, but writing whole new type of code? History on coding be nice as well. I already own Hackers:Heroes of the Computer Revolution. But like other books on it as well.

all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

[off topic]

The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson.

Alternate history where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage gave the British Empire a working, steam driven computer.

Fun book.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 points 3 months ago
[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean by “whole new type of code?”

[–] ElectricWaterfall@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My guess would be writing a new programming language.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Researching and playing around.

Where are you starting? This topic is extremely deep, but I think to start you should understand how most parsers work, poke around wikipedia to understand lexical analysis, context-free grammars and check the links. Play around with python libraries like Lark https://lark-parser.readthedocs.io/en/stable/how_to_use.html#getting-started

They have some examples of writing custom parsers https://github.com/lark-parser/lark/tree/master/examples

Or pick your starting point for wikipedia rabbit holes. I'm not a hugely opinionated language person, I have the features I'm used to using and semantics I prefer but don't really get opinionated about the actual syntax of most languages.

There's LALR parsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LALR_parser

Parse trees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parse_tree

Reverse Polish Notation and Shunting-Yard for the old school stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation

I guess my generation (mid-30s) people who grew up interesting in computers often went through a whole language phase. I picked it up professionally and was more interested in it as a tool, rather than a purely academic pursuit, but understanding fundamentals helps you a lot when it comes to executing on whatever project interests you.

[–] shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)
[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

This is how I learned LISP! I still have my copy, which I bought new when it came out ...

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Seconding this recommendation. If OP is after novelty, this book might seem, at first glance, to not fit the bill. However, there's a reason why it's become a cult classic. I really like how, although it uses LISP for its examples, it's actually a really cool look at the more abstract side of computing. As I understand it, for its time, it was weird as shit

[–] shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 months ago

I think if I had to describe it succinctly, I would have to say it's mind altering? They teach a concept you can understand, again and again and then suddenly they reveal the 'trick' that they have been building up to then and you're Paul Atreides on Arrakis tripping balls on spice as your awareness suddenly expands

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago
[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Would be better to learn it through a book, or any good places to learn for free?

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've found that learning programming from books to be more reliable, especially with how much slop there is on the modern web. I find that books (which don't necessarily need to come in the form of a physical book — there are some great ones that are fully online). A crucial aspect though, regardless of what resource you use, is that you need to do the exercises as you go. This is something that I wish that I had understood earlier; I wasted a lot of time trying to treat this learning as something that you can do purely from reading, whether that be books or resources on the web.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the info, I ordered a copy.

[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

JavaScript the Good Parts
By Douglas Crockford

Some will say its outdated, but I still dig it.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A joke seventeen years old and counting.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Call me old fashioned, but I think type safety is kind of neat.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Doesn't make the joke any funnier.

[–] dresden@discuss.online 3 points 3 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (1994) by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides

I highly recommend all devs to read this.

[–] NotADeer@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

The Dragon book is often the holy grail for compiler construction.

In the class I took on programming languages we used Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming