Favorite books

[jojo]

I'm just a weirdly big fan of good technical writing, and I assume a lot of you guys are too.

Even though it's a decade out of date, I found Windows 95 Programming Secrets a while back and couldn't get enough of it -- I love its really deeply technical knowledge that's presented in a super readable and interesting way and gives insight into knowledge that's not generally trivial to find.

I know a lot of people often recommend Practical Filesystem Design, and though I've only peeked at that a bit it seems promising enough that I'll probably throw a couple of bucks at a used copy.

On the flipside, I bought a copy of Linux Kernel Development and it has been both boring me half to death while simultaneously feeling like it's not well structured in the way it's presenting me the information -- I feel like I can't practically use a lot of what he's telling me because he keeps kind of presenting the information in a vacuum.

I find that a lot of books I randomly pick up are more like the last example than the first two. Is there anything you guys really like?

[Don]

Is there anything you guys really like?

That depends on what you're looking for: general ideas or details of
specific implementations? Inspiration vs, documentation.

My short list of texts that might be of interest, here (assuming you
are primarily interested in software), includes:

• Organick's The MULTICS System (i.e., how to be thorough!)
• McKusick et al.'s The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD
  Operating System (i.e., a more modern take on Organick)
• McKusick et al.'s The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD
  Operating System (i.e., a more modern take on McKusick :>)
• Lions' Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition (commentary and
  sources for a small/legacy UN*X)
• Comer's Operating System Design/XINU, 2 volumes (if you've
  never looked under the hood of a traditional/desktop OS)
• Tanenbaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation
  (ditto)
• Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP, 2 volumes (if you've never
  written a network stack)
• Stevens' TCP/IP Illustrated, 3 volumes (if you have!)
• Tanenbaum's Distributed Operating Systems (if you've never
  looked into the workings of loosely coupled multiprocessing)
• Boykin et al.'s Programming under Mach (if you've never seen a
  microkernel)
• Foster's Real Time Programming (if you've never considered how
  a machine interacts with the WORLD around it -- though the title
  always makes me cringe as he has a crippled idea of what constitutes
  "real-time")

Of course, there are many other closely related texts -- issues that
are also applicable to OS design (security, cryptography, etc.).
Knuth's "bible" for programming in general. And, his TeXBook series
for thinking about how to document non-trivial pieces of code.

For an idea of a different direction to take with OS's and userlands,
a look through the Inferno documentation (Vita Nuova) can be
enlightening (i.e., not everyone is obsessed with performance; esp
in light of how inexpensive computing resources have become)

Ack! This list could go on and on... let me know when you've finished
those ~10,000 pages...

[jojo]

That depends on what you're looking for: general ideas or details of
specific implementations? Inspiration vs, documentation.

I'm not so much looking for info on a subject, I just want to know if there's anyone out there who has any reference material of which they've just really enjoyed the experience of reading.

Could be operating systems. Could be an API reference. Could be a thesis on a design pattern. Could be a guide on raising cattle.

Awesome list, I'll have to check it out!

[Don]

...just really enjoyed the experience of reading

Ah, neglecting your "reference material" qualification, by far, the most
enjoyable read for me has been Crumb's The Yum Yum Book

Sadly, my copy has been read so many times that the pages are actually
breaking!

[jojo]

I'll have to check that out if for no other reason than that there's an R. Crumb reference in this Aesop Rock song I like that I've never taken the time to understand.

[Solar]

The Amiga Guru Book.

An awesome technical reference, which is also a very enjoyable read, not only the funny section subtitles but throughout. I still keep it around, for nothing else but the best explanation of floating point number structure that I have ever seen in print. (This includes the Intel books. The Guru Book is just so much more approachable.)

I also learned lots about the history of things, which always helps lots in understanding why some things are crufty the way they are. (1)

Too bad that some twerp took the 1993 book (which covered AmigaOS 2.1), scanned it in high-res, and made it available as torrent, shortly before the updated version (covering AmigaOS 3.x / 4.0) was due to be released in 2007/8.

Looking at the much reduced potential market, and facing the significant financial risk of self-publishing a book that only might see a hundred sales or so, plus being deeply hurt by the disrespect in a community where most people are on first-name terms after all this time, the author withdrew the project.

Lesson learned: Piracy hurts long-term availability, especially in fringe markets. Don't do it.

---

(1): The Art of Assembly does this for the x86 instruction set. But that was after I lost any real interest in picking up an Assembler dialect.

[Don]

Wow, the lack of a threaded interface is really annoying!

I'll have to check that out if for no other reason than that there's an R. Crumb reference in this Aesop Rock song I like that I've never taken the time to understand.

Interesting character, interesting work, different times... Mr Natural, Fritz the Cat, etc.

G Shelton is also worth chasing down. And, J Lynch (though getting even more towards the "fringe"). Depends a lot on where your personal taste boundaries lie (how seriously you take yourself).

The Yum Yum Book would be an excellent place to start. At the very least, you'll put it down and ask (in awe), "How the hell do people come up with stuff like this??"

Have fun.

[jojo]

I also learned lots about the history of things, which always helps lots in understanding why some things are crufty the way they are.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I love. It makes something so much easier to understand when you know not only what it is but why it is that way.

Plus, history of all sorts is just absolutely fascinating. From the world wars down to the development of an API. Everything influences everything else, and context can make any object into an artifact.

At the very least, you'll put it down and ask (in awe), "How the hell do people come up with stuff like this??"

And that's the way I likes it.

[SWGDev]

Code Complete by S. McConnell. Beautiful book for its time. Still quite relevant, I guess.