10 votes

Looking for programming/software book recommendations

Posted by teaearlgraycold
Tags: ask.recommendations, programming, software

I'm not looking to gain any practical skills from these recommendations (ex: not "Clean Code", "The Pragmatic Programmer"). Last year I read through the two books in Fabien Sanglard's Game Engine Black Book series and would love to get my hands on more books like them. Books that focus on history, arcane details and secrets once thought lost to time. Sadly it appears I've already worked through Sanglard's entire bibliography. But I'm sure there's more stuff out there like it.

8 comments

  1. [3]
    DougM
    Link
    Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture: The Making of Prince of Persia: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution:

    Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture:

    Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake— until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry—a powerful and compassionate account of what it's like to be young, driven, and wildly creative.

    The Making of Prince of Persia:

    Before Prince of Persia was a best-selling video game franchise and a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, it was an Apple II computer game created and programmed by one person, Jordan Mechner. Mechner's candid and revealing journals from the time capture his journey from his parents' basement to the forefront of the fast-growing 1980s video game industry... and the creative, technical and personal struggles that brought the prince into being and ultimately into the homes of millions of people worldwide.

    Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution:

    A mere fifteen years ago, computer nerds were seen as marginal weirdos, outsiders whose world would never resonate with the mainstream. That was before one pioneering work documented the underground computer revolution that was about to change our world forever. With groundbreaking profiles of Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, and more, Steven Levy's Hackers brilliantly captured a seminal moment when the risk-takers and explorers were poised to conquer twentieth-century America's last great frontier. And in the Internet age, the hacker ethic-first espoused here-is alive and well.

    7 votes
    1. joplin
      Link Parent
      I can second Masters of Doom! I haven't read the book about Prince of Persia but have read and watched several interviews with Jordan Mechner and they were very interesting. A coworker of mine has...

      I can second Masters of Doom! I haven't read the book about Prince of Persia but have read and watched several interviews with Jordan Mechner and they were very interesting.

      A coworker of mine has a book on obscure but useful programming tricks. I'll see if I can dig up the title.

      2 votes
    2. teaearlgraycold
      Link Parent
      Thanks for all the recommendations!

      Thanks for all the recommendations!

      1 vote
  2. [2]
    skybrian
    Link
    It's a been a while, but I remember Soul of a New Machine being pretty good. It's the story of how a new minicomputer was designed, back before personal computers. I will second the recommendation...

    It's a been a while, but I remember Soul of a New Machine being pretty good. It's the story of how a new minicomputer was designed, back before personal computers.

    I will second the recommendation of Steven Levy's Hackers, which had major influence on me as a college student. Nowadays I would be more critical of the cultures it describes, though.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. skybrian
        Link Parent
        Glad you liked it! Here are a couple more of Tracy Kidder's books that I liked: Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003) - This is about Dr. Paul Farmer, who founded a charity named Partners in Health to...

        Glad you liked it! Here are a couple more of Tracy Kidder's books that I liked:

        • Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003) - This is about Dr. Paul Farmer, who founded a charity named Partners in Health to bring health care to Haiti, and later other places like Rwanda.

        • House (1985) - This is about the process of building a new house and especially the sometimes-tense relationships between the owners, architect, and builders. Houses are not built like this anymore but I imagine that there are similar tensions today.

        He wrote a bunch of other books too that I should probably read.

        2 votes
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
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