r/compsci · 2019

Most-mentioned books in r/compsci during 2019

This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/compsci within the published source unit for 2019. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.

Books ranked

Tracked mentions in 2019

Sort by upvotes = sum of comment scores on recognized mentions

Introduction to Algorithms

Thomas H. Cormen

A course syllabus gets posted, and a Redditor recognizes it as nothing but this book's chapter headings in disguise.

10 in 2019

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Harold Abelson

Six chapters into Scheme, you're writing an interpreter for a language you invented an hour ago.

10 in 2019

The Art of Computer Programming

Donald E. Knuth

Four volumes of algorithms and combinatorics Donald Knuth started in 1962 and still hasn't finished, cited more often than it's actually read.

6 in 2019

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold

Charles Petzold builds a working computer from a doorbell, a flashlight, and a length of wire, then keeps going until it's running software.

3 in 2019

The Pragmatic Programmer

Andy Hunt

Two working programmers write down the shop habits senior engineers use so junior ones stop reinventing them badly.

2 in 2019

The Soul of a New Machine

Tracy Kidder

A journalist embeds with Data General's engineers racing on no sleep to ship a new minicomputer before the deadline kills the project.

2 in 2019

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

Barbara Oakley

A woman who flunked high school math writes the study-skills book self-taught programmers keep citing to explain why a walk outside unsticks a hard problem.

1 in 2019

C++ Primer

Stanley B. Lippman

The reference you keep open next to the keyboard once C++ stops handing you training wheels.

1 in 2019

Design Patterns

Erich Gamma

Four authors catalog twenty-three recurring object-oriented problems in 1994 and hand every future code review the same argument to have.

1 in 2019

#10

Grokking Algorithms

Aditya Y. Bhargava

A cartoon-illustrated walkthrough of binary search, sorting, and graphs aimed at people who bounced off Introduction to Algorithms.

1 in 2019

#11

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie

A 1936 salesman's manual argues you'll get further remembering someone's name and asking about their day than by being right.

1 in 2019

#12

Modern Operating Systems

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

A 1,000-page walkthrough of how an operating system actually works, kept on the shelf for the week before a systems interview.

1 in 2019

#13

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Christopher M. Bishop

Chris Bishop opens with Bayes' theorem and doesn't let go until three hundred pages of matrices later you understand why a neural network is really just curve-fitting with priors.

1 in 2019

#14

Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++

Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup, the man who invented C++, writes the beginner's book on it himself instead of leaving that job to someone else.

1 in 2019

#15

Test-Driven Development: By Example

Kent Beck

Kent Beck writes a failing test, makes it pass, then refactors — and shows you the keystrokes, not the theory.

1 in 2019

#16

The C Programming Language

Brian W. Kernighan

Two authors write the book that becomes 'K&R,' and forty years later Reddit still uses it as shorthand for programmers who had to know everything themselves.

1 in 2019