r/compsci · 2025

Most-mentioned books in r/compsci during 2025

This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/compsci within the published source unit for 2025. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.

Books ranked

Tracked mentions in 2025

Sort by upvotes = sum of comment scores on recognized mentions

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.

1 in 2025

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Martin Kleppmann

Martin Kleppmann walks backend engineers through every database, queue, and consistency tradeoff they'll eventually get paged about.

1 in 2025

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.

1 in 2025

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.

1 in 2025

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 2025

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.

1 in 2025