[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are older programming books useful?
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Ask HN: Are older programming books useful?
For context, I'm a librarian purchasing tech books for my public
library. We have around 30 books just on Python alone, not counting
any that are about using Python for things like machine learning or
data science. Other than clear version changes (like Python 2 to
Python 3), are older programming books still useful? The majority
of the books span from around 2014 to the present, and they're all
still circulating. Thanks! (And thank you for the book
recommendations posted here as well, I have definitely purchased
some of them for our collection.)
Author : Iriien
Score : 14 points
Date : 2022-07-17 19:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
| shubb wrote:
| Tasks specific books age very quickly, and are easily replaced by
| googling.
|
| Books about learning programming for beginners or just about a
| language have a longer shelf life. Some people like to work
| through them chapter by chapter as a course, and they can be
| particularly useful to kids in smartphone only houses who don't
| have day to day access to a PC.
|
| There are, as others mentioned, lots of "theory" books that are
| ageless. How To Solve It: Modern Heuristics for example. But
| these are most useful to professionals and university students
| honestly. There are also pop-science type books like Algorithms
| To Live By or Invisible Women that are interesting to a wider
| audience but don't directly teach skills.
|
| The problem with throwing all the task specific books in the
| trash is that they do provide some kind of a bridge between the
| very basics and actually doing something useful. Users don't want
| to learn python, they want to Automate The Boring Stuff or do
| machine learning or whatever. I think pointing them at the latest
| ebooks for that stuff might be best. If my local library let me
| e-borrow the latest packtpub and oriely books that would be
| awesome.
|
| One thing I find wierd as I get into harder, more architectural
| problems, is that as an industry we spent decades thinking about
| stuff, creating standards, and writing books about stuff, and no
| one reads them. We prefer to invent wheels again because it feels
| more like progress than reading books.
| sfled wrote:
| Every once in a while I'll get a customer who is using older
| versions of a language. I keep my old books for these guys,
| especially after having to repurchase a few books used on amz.
| error_salad wrote:
| Sure. I have a book about Basic from the 1980s. Obviously when I
| got it, the book was way outdated, but served as a nice
| introduction to programming in general and what to expect. (I was
| six at the time. Didn't realize the full extent of the book.)
| NtochkaNzvanova wrote:
| It depends. As you can imagine, a lot of the more practical books
| focused on specific technologies are going to be out of date
| within a few years at most. This is especially true the younger
| the technology is. Something like Lindy's Law
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect) probably applies --
| the longer a technology has been around, the longer in the future
| you can expect it to be around. Things like C and SQL are no
| longer changing that quickly, even though they are still widely
| used.
|
| That said, there are a lot of "programming" books that are more
| technology-independent and contain more "timeless" knowledge
| about the art and craft of programming (and more fundamentally,
| computer science). If you want to make sure that your purchases
| stand the test of time, look for those. You can find a lot of
| them by searching sites like HN, Reddit, and Stack Overflow for
| lists of the best computer science and software engineering
| books. A few examples that tend to show up on these lists:
|
| - Bentley, "Programming Pearls"
|
| - Kernighan and Pike, "The Practice of Programming"
|
| - McConnell, "Code Complete"
|
| - Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month"
|
| - Abelson and Sussman, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer
| Programs"
|
| - Gamma et al., "Design Patterns"
|
| - Fowler, "Refactoring"
|
| - Kernighan and Ritchie, "The C Programming Language"
|
| just to list a few off the top of my head.
| Iriien wrote:
| Thanks for the list! We do have some of these, and I'll check
| on adding the rest to my cart.
|
| I think a considerable amount of what I'm looking at is the
| more ephemeral type of book, so I feel a bit better doing a
| more vicious weeding. Thanks!
| efortis wrote:
| Knuth, "The Art of Computer Programming"
| retrocryptid wrote:
| And don't forget Knuth's "Literate Programming." I didn't
| agree with every stylistic decision Knuth made, but reading
| it led me to clarifing some of my own thoughts.
|
| Let me +1 the previous SICP (Structure and Interpretation of
| Computer Programs) and Mythical Man Month. I also like
| DeMarco's PeopleWare. And Loeliger's "Threaded Interpreted
| Languages." I bought a copy of Doug Kaye's "Loosely Coupled
| Systems" from bettereorldbooks.com and it looks like it was a
| library book that should never have been taken out of
| circulation. It discusses an important aspect of software
| design that gets little love in the mainstream. I also got a
| copy of Yourdon's "Structured Design," which was originally
| released just as OOP was getting big. But... it still
| contains numerous pearls of wisdom suitable for both OOP and
| Functional programmers.
| Cody_C wrote:
| The most solid fundamentals have been mostly true throughout
| great software. Even older books can hold a great deal of wisdom.
|
| Engineers now seem to lean on books less, I think it is a great
| way to learn about tech and programming. Quick searches are
| mostly optimized to solve one issue. For a bigger scope, I have
| had great experiences with reading books, including older ones.
|
| Some older titles I have really enjoyed are: Mythical Man Month
| Code Complete II The Psychology of Computer Programming Joel On
| Software Rapid Development
| pamoroso wrote:
| The growing interest in retrocomputing is making old programming
| books invaluable, especially those about 1970s and 1980s
| microcomputer systems and languages. For example, I'm reading
| lots of books about Intel 8080 and Z80 Assembly programming, as
| well as CP/M.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| One of the problems I often have is that people are not writing
| books for the languages I like to write in anymore. Often a book
| from 2012 or 2014 is the best I can get. So bear in mind, unless
| you have something better coming in on the same topic, and
| especially if it's still circulating, leave it be!
| digianarchist wrote:
| Unlikely.
|
| I'm moving in the coming days and I couldn't give away books that
| are 5 years or older. They ended up at Goodwill.
|
| Some books age better but these are usually books on the
| fundamentals of CS or software engineering; not programming
| tutorials.
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