Alan Kay is Master Yoda for IT people. He , . He has spoken extensively about his views on education in Computer Science and has recommended books for those who want to deepen their knowledge:
Recently on Quora and the discussion came out on top on Hacker News. I bring to your attention a "new" list of super-old and fundamental books on programming and thinking of a programmer from Alan Kay.
Lisp 1.5 Programmers Manual
by John McCarthy, 1962
The book is the absolute champion and lifelong leader of the rating of all book lists from Alan Kay. This version of the language is no longer available, but the book is great.
eight more rarities:
Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines
by Marvin Minsky, 1967
Advances in Programming and Non-Numerical Computation
ed. L. Fox, 1966
The Mythical Man-Month
by Fred Brooks, 1975
The Sciences of the Artificial
by Herb Simon
Herbert Simon didn't read newspapers or watch TV because he thought that if something really important happened, someone would definitely tell him about it, so it's not worth wasting time on the media.
β
A Programming Language
by Ken Iverson, 1962
Control Structures for Programming Languages
by Dave Fisher, 1970
The Metaobject Protocol
by Kiczales
Joe Armstrong's PhD thesis
, creator of Erlang.
PS
Two questions for readers:
- What old school books do you consider must-read?
- What non-programming books have improved your programming mindset/worldview?
Source: habr.com