Here are 23 books that Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs fans have personally recommended if you like
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
My life has been about programming for as long as I can remember. Learning to code was a way to connect with my dad and express my creativity at a young age. Since I grew up with code, it became the way I understood the world; often I could look at a process or program and immediately see its source code in my mind. I developed a very strong sense of aesthetics searching for “perfect code,” which for me was code that was not only error-free but resistant to errors. My studies, research, and career is about moving myself and all programmers closer to that goal: Software that never fails.
Continuing down the engineering part of this mini-curriculum, we have a collection of interesting ideas, each written by a different author, all of them inspiring.
Some of the chapters in this book I have reread more times than I can count, because the ideas are so original and intriguing that my fingers start to tingle.
How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development? In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be able to look over the shoulder of major coding and design experts to see problems through their eyes. This is not simply another design patterns book, or another software engineering treatise on the right and wrong way to do things. The authors think aloud as they work through their project's architecture, the tradeoffs made in its construction, and when it was important to…
My life has been about programming for as long as I can remember. Learning to code was a way to connect with my dad and express my creativity at a young age. Since I grew up with code, it became the way I understood the world; often I could look at a process or program and immediately see its source code in my mind. I developed a very strong sense of aesthetics searching for “perfect code,” which for me was code that was not only error-free but resistant to errors. My studies, research, and career is about moving myself and all programmers closer to that goal: Software that never fails.
Having worked with an untyped functional language the next logical step is to add types on top, and how to get a better understanding than by implementing the type system yourself.
This book takes you through all the interesting kinds and variations of type systems, and you get to implement them yourself using one of my absolute favorite languages (OCaml).
A comprehensive introduction to type systems and programming languages.
A type system is a syntactic method for automatically checking the absence of certain erroneous behaviors by classifying program phrases according to the kinds of values they compute. The study of type systems—and of programming languages from a type-theoretic perspective—has important applications in software engineering, language design, high-performance compilers, and security.
This text provides a comprehensive introduction both to type systems in computer science and to the basic theory of programming languages. The approach is pragmatic and operational; each new concept is motivated by programming examples and the more theoretical sections…
My life has been about programming for as long as I can remember. Learning to code was a way to connect with my dad and express my creativity at a young age. Since I grew up with code, it became the way I understood the world; often I could look at a process or program and immediately see its source code in my mind. I developed a very strong sense of aesthetics searching for “perfect code,” which for me was code that was not only error-free but resistant to errors. My studies, research, and career is about moving myself and all programmers closer to that goal: Software that never fails.
The building blocks of software are algorithms, so here our journey continues after you have established a deep understanding of programming languages.
Modern software is predominantly distributed, and since this book doesn't assume much it is the perfect introduction to algorithm analysis, concurrency, and distributed systems. And the best part is that you can just jump in and build these algorithms yourself.
The new edition of a guide to distributed algorithms that emphasizes examples and exercises rather than the intricacies of mathematical models.
This book offers students and researchers a guide to distributed algorithms that emphasizes examples and exercises rather than the intricacies of mathematical models. It avoids mathematical argumentation, often a stumbling block for students, teaching algorithmic thought rather than proofs and logic. This approach allows the student to learn a large number of algorithms within a relatively short span of time. Algorithms are explained through brief, informal descriptions, illuminating examples, and practical exercises. The examples and exercises allow readers to…
My life has been about programming for as long as I can remember. Learning to code was a way to connect with my dad and express my creativity at a young age. Since I grew up with code, it became the way I understood the world; often I could look at a process or program and immediately see its source code in my mind. I developed a very strong sense of aesthetics searching for “perfect code,” which for me was code that was not only error-free but resistant to errors. My studies, research, and career is about moving myself and all programmers closer to that goal: Software that never fails.
This tour of programming is a humorous reminder that we should always question our assumptions.
This book presents example after example of very simple Java programs all of which behave differently than you expect. It's both humbling and so provocative that you have to go into an editor and see if their claims are true.
"Every programming language has its quirks. This lively book reveals oddities of the Java programming language through entertaining and thought-provoking programming puzzles."
--Guy Steele, Sun Fellow and coauthor of The Java (TM) Language Specification
"I laughed, I cried, I threw up (my hands in admiration)."
--Tim Peierls, president, Prior Artisans LLC, and member of the JSR 166 Expert Group
How well do you really know Java? Are you a code sleuth? Have you ever spent days chasing a bug caused by a trap or pitfall in Java or its libraries? Do you like brainteasers? Then this is the book for…
With over a decade of experience in web development using Clojure and active involvement in the Clojure open source community, I have gathered invaluable insights into effective use of the language. I am eager to share some of the experience and knowledge I have acquired with those new to the language.
The Clojure ecosystem presents a multifaceted landscape that can pose a significant challenge for novices, thereby rendering the language itself daunting to approach. However, this comprehensive book aims to alleviate these complexities by providing a guided pathway for readers to construct practical web applications using Clojure.
By following the structured framework within these pages, readers will not only gain a deeper understanding of the language's nuances but also acquire essential proficiency in employing it efficiently. Furthermore, this authoritative resource elucidates numerous best practices, empowering readers to cultivate a skillset that maximizes their effectiveness in utilizing Clojure to its fullest potential.
This book is a great choice for Clojure beginners because it takes the reader through pragmatic examples of using the language, and applying its features effective to solve real-world problems.
Think in the Clojure way! Once you're familiar with Clojure, take the next step with extended lessons on the best practices and most critical decisions you'll need to make while developing. Learn how to model your domain with data, transform it with pure functions, manage state, spread your work across cores, and structure apps with components. Discover how to use Clojure in the real world, and unlock the speed and power of this beautiful language on the Java Virtual Machine. Clojure Applied gives you the practical, realistic advice and depth of field that's been missing from your development practice. You…
I'm a programmer with a desire to constantly learn and improve. I have many years of experience in writing mission-critical software in highly event-driven areas such as FinTech and online auctions. Through interesting and challenging projects, I've always been fascinated by trying to generalize and abstract what it is that makes good code; so things like design patterns and best practices were just up my street. As I expanded this personal research, I found that functional programming provided many interesting techniques, but that many professionals in the industry were unaware of them. This is why I decided to show these techniques and their benefits to a wider audience through my book Functional Programming in C#.
For many years I did not question the validity of the language I was using, focussing instead on becoming good at getting it to do what was needed. It never occurred to me that, say, the type system could be flawed, causing extra work and allowing unnecessary bugs to seep in.
But what if, instead of writing validation code, you could define your types in a way that makes it impossible to create an invalid instance? What if you could define state transitions in such a way that a state machine cannot transition into an invalid state? These are indeed some of the things the Idris language allows.
In his book Type-Driven Development with Idris, Edwin Brady takes you through both the ideas of type-driven development, and how they're enabled in Iris. Iris looks a lot like Haskell, but better. It even has a unique solution for the complex issue…
With over a decade of experience in web development using Clojure and active involvement in the Clojure open source community, I have gathered invaluable insights into effective use of the language. I am eager to share some of the experience and knowledge I have acquired with those new to the language.
This book contains many practical examples of solving common programming tasks using Clojure, and it's an excellent choice for a practical Clojure reference.
Developers who are new to the functional programming style will find a lot of useful patterns for solving problems using idiomatic Clojure style. The book is an essential reference for Clojure developers.
With more than 150 detailed recipes, this cookbook shows experienced Clojure developers how to solve a variety of programming tasks with this JVM language. The solutions cover everything from building dynamic websites and working with databases to network communication, cloud computing, and advanced testing strategies. And more than 60 of the world's best Clojurians contributed recipes. Each recipe includes code that you can use right away, along with a discussion on how and why the solution works, so you can adapt these patterns, approaches, and techniques to situations not specifically covered in this cookbook. Master built-in primitive and composite data…
I'm a programmer with a desire to constantly learn and improve. I have many years of experience in writing mission-critical software in highly event-driven areas such as FinTech and online auctions. Through interesting and challenging projects, I've always been fascinated by trying to generalize and abstract what it is that makes good code; so things like design patterns and best practices were just up my street. As I expanded this personal research, I found that functional programming provided many interesting techniques, but that many professionals in the industry were unaware of them. This is why I decided to show these techniques and their benefits to a wider audience through my book Functional Programming in C#.
If you're a C# programmer and have read or are interested in my book, there's a good chance you're working on a backend that supports a web application powered with JavaScript (or another language that compiles to JavaScript).
If you're interested in having more functional programming in your life, I recommend you learn Elm, a purely functional language that compiles to JavaScript.
To do this, I recommend Richard Feldman's Elm in Action, a book that takes you from zero to writing a web app in Elm.
The book teaches you everything you need to know to get started with Elm: 1) the syntax—it's a language of the ML family (like Haskell or F#) but its type system is simpler, and generally the language has been designed to be the most approachable functional language out there; 2) the Elm architecture—you write code that works within a framework, so you can write…
Elm is more than just a cutting-edge programming language, it's a chance to upgrade the way you think about building web applications. Once you get comfortable with Elm's refreshingly different approach to application development, you'll be working with a clean syntax, dependable libraries, and a delightful compiler that essentially eliminates runtime exceptions. Elm compiles to JavaScript, so your code runs in any browser, and Elm's best-in-class rendering speed will knock your socks off. Let's get started!
Elm in Action teaches you how to build well-designed, highly performant web applications using the Elm language. As you read, you'll follow an application…
With over a decade of experience in web development using Clojure and active involvement in the Clojure open source community, I have gathered invaluable insights into effective use of the language. I am eager to share some of the experience and knowledge I have acquired with those new to the language.
This book focuses on Clojure features that make it a great choice for building high-quality professional applications. It will guide the readers through an effective Clojure workflow that will help beginners to get up and running in a professional setting.
This is an essential resource for using Clojure to build real-world projects.
Clear, practical Clojure for the professional programmer
Professional Clojure is the experienced developer's guide to functional programming using the Clojure language. Designed specifically to meet the needs of professional developers, this book briefly introduces functional programming before skipping directly to the heart of using Clojure in a real-world setting. The discussion details the read-eval-print workflow that enables fast feedback loops, then dives into enterprise-level Clojure development with expert guidance on web services, testing, datomics, performance, and more. Read from beginning to end, this book serves as a clear, direct guide to Clojure programming-but the comprehensive coverage and detail makes it…
I'm a programmer with a desire to constantly learn and improve. I have many years of experience in writing mission-critical software in highly event-driven areas such as FinTech and online auctions. Through interesting and challenging projects, I've always been fascinated by trying to generalize and abstract what it is that makes good code; so things like design patterns and best practices were just up my street. As I expanded this personal research, I found that functional programming provided many interesting techniques, but that many professionals in the industry were unaware of them. This is why I decided to show these techniques and their benefits to a wider audience through my book Functional Programming in C#.
You may have got a taste of functional programming by learning some functional techniques in the language they use everyday, but if you want to deepen your knowledge, it's best to learn a functional language.
A multi-paradigm language like C# allows you to mix and match different techniques; a purely functional language, on the other hand, will force you to use the functional approach throughout—for example, by not allowing any state mutation at all.
The natural choice would be to learn Haskell, the functional language of reference and a lingua franca among functional programmers. Learning Haskell will allow you to take advantage of a wealth of literature on functional programming - books, blogs, talks, and so on - many of which have code samples in Haskell.
For this, I recommend you read Learn You a Haskell for Great Good by Miran Lipovaca. This book has been a favourite throughout the…
It's all in the name: Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! is a hilarious, illustrated guide to this complex functional language. Packed with the author's original artwork, pop culture references, and most importantly, useful example code, this book teaches functional fundamentals in a way you never thought possible. You'll start with the kid stuff: basic syntax, recursion, types and type classes. Then once you've got the basics down, the real black belt master-class begins: you'll learn to use applicative functors, monads, zippers, and all the other mythical Haskell constructs you've only read about in storybooks. As you work your…
