(Part 28) Best computer programming books according to redditors

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We found 8,316 Reddit comments discussing the best computer programming books. We ranked the 1,691 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 541-560. You can also go back to the previous section.

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Subcategories:

Web development programming books
Software development books
API & operating environments books
Algorithms and data structures books
Graphic & multimedia programming books
Programming for beginners books
Software design & engeneering books
Microsoft programming books
Game programming books
Functional software programming books
Apple programming books
Parallel computer programming books

Top Reddit comments about Computer Programming:

u/blexim · 41 pointsr/compsci

I'm really surprised that nobody has mentioned the dragon book yet: Compilers: principles, techniques and tools.

This taught me more or less everything I know about formal languages & automata, which are just such a powerful, simple and useful way of thinking about a ton of problems in computer science. It also made me realise that building DSLs (domain specific languages) is actually really easy, and very often having the right language turns an intractable problem into a simple one.

u/O5marD · 19 pointsr/Python

C++ is my favourite language. I have four books for you. 1) Exploring C++11 by Ray Lischner http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Experts-Voice-Ray-Lischner/dp/1430261935. C++ is extremely complicated and this book will help you get up to speed programming with C++ and also understand it. 2) Programming Principle and Practice: using C++. http://www.stroustrup.com/Programming/. Even though this book is for beginners even seasoned programmers from other languages will gain huge insight for using/programming with C++ from the C++ creator himself. 3) The C++ Programming Language 4th Ed. Everything (99%) you need to know about the language is there. You can use it as a tutorial or reference. 4) Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyer. As I said above C++ is complicated and quirky and the info in this book will help you understanding some of the language's 'subtleties'. Other links: The home of Standard C++ on the web http://isocpp.org/ . Nice onlice reference http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp. Bjarne Stroustrup's homepage: http://www.stroustrup.com/. Of course there more books I'd recommend and more links but these I hope will get you started. Get Exploring C++11 first!!

u/hohlermann · 9 pointsr/drupal

I came to Drupal from the ground-up, rather than top-down. After I got past the Drupal learning curve, I discovered a lot of flexibility and reusable components... and lots of anti-patterns. With that said, especially for the more popular extensions, there's a reason for their popularity. Just because it's different from what you're used to doesn't mean it's bad.

Do look for modules. Don't just install every module you find; figure out the functional requirements are and test critically.

Yes, there may be a module for it, but is it supported? How many people downloaded it? Is it actively developed? Does it even work? Does it conflict with anything?

If you can grok the 5 lines of code that you need from a throwaway contrib module to perform a task and add it cleanly as part of your custom code, just do it - comment to cite and move on.

Yes, there are plenty of UIs, and some of them are pretty horrid. First thing I do is disable overlay, for example. You don't have to use them.

There's drush, which is a fantastic CLI interface, which facilitates a lot of back-end tasks. I strongly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1430231351 is a great book for getting started with Drupal 7 development, not "site building".

Hang out in IRC, #drupal-contrib and #pantheon on freenode for example if you want to talk shop.

u/icemangumbite · 7 pointsr/androiddev

The book Android Programming: Pushing The Limits by Erik Hellman is geared more for experienced programmers. I cannot recommend it enough.

u/wernercd · 7 pointsr/learnprogramming

For a learning resource with C#, I've grown to like Apress books. [http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-2010-Experts-Voice-NET/dp/143023282X] (2008 version is one of my favorites) (Here's a stackoverflow question about good C# books [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/632571/c-sharp-book-for-the-casual-beginner-c-sharp-programmer] if you want to go the book route).

Quick google search of "C# tutorial" turns up some good looking resources:
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa288436(VS.71).aspx]
[http://www.csharp-station.com/Tutorial.aspx]
[http://csharp.net-tutorials.com/]

Most important resource of all, [http://stackoverflow.com]. Best place to ask questions and get answers to programming questions.


Most important thing to do... is while your reading the tutorials, make them into programs yourself. Read & implement. Only times I've gotten noticably better is when I

u/FizixMan · 6 pointsr/csharp

Comparing the table of contents for both editions (assuming it's this (2010) vs this (2013), the additions for 2013 are:

  • Book 2, Chapter 11: Improving Productivity with Named and Optional Parameters
  • Book 3, Chapter 6: Programming Dynamically!
  • Book 3, Chapter 7: Helping Out with Interop

    However, 2010 seems to have an additional "Book 8" which also includes these same chapters. I'm assuming the content of those chapters are very similar if not identical.

    As far as I can tell, they're probably mostly identical. I would suspect that the biggest difference would be with "Book IV: A Tour of Visual Studio" in which (I'm assuming you're using Visual Studio 2013) some of the shortcuts/menus might be a bit different. Most likely for the depth the book is going in to, it won't be that much different (and if it is different, probably a quick google will help you find it).

    tl;dr Feel free to grab the 2010 edition. The books look nearly identical.

    EDIT: And just to comment on what's in there, definitely looks like it'll cover the important bits. The relatively newer stuff (LINQ, async/await, covariance) you can definitely learn online separately once you have a good grasp of the language (and Visual Studio, .NET, environment) fundamentals.
u/ForgetAboutFreeman · 6 pointsr/drupal

Welcome aboard! Looks like you've got some reading to do.

  • Using Drupal a guide to quickly start you on getting ramped up with general usage and site administration tasks.
  • Pro Drupal 7 Development is an excellent resource for beginning developers with some PHP knowledge trying to get a handle on how to write Drupal modules.
  • The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 when you're ready, this book will fill in a lot of the gaps left by Pro Drupal 7 Development.
  • If you're also going to be handling front end development (styling the site and the like) you will want to get your hands on some reference material on Drupal site theming. I don't have a specific recommendation here so I'm hoping a themer will chime in.


    You might also consider installing Drush in your site hosting and development environments. It provides commandline tools to automate common tasks and is a great thing to have in your toolbox.

    One thing I would stress is to not be in a hurry to write code when just getting started. If you're new to Drupal you may be surprised with how much you can accomplish without writing any code, especially if you use the right combination of contributed modules for the task at hand.
u/megazver · 6 pointsr/learnpython

You try the Invent Games with Python / Making Games with Python books, if dipping your toes into gamedev sounds fun.

I am working through Python Programming For the Absolute Beginner and that also has a focus on game-style projects. The first one will probably be a bit too easy for you, but More PPFtAB might be something that interests you.

u/asdferrous · 6 pointsr/cardano
u/DailyDoseOfAwesome · 5 pointsr/joinsquad

There is a big difference between mapping on an existing game and actual software development.

u/sonorangoose · 5 pointsr/androiddev

Poor timing I'm afraid — existing books are a little behind — and Reto's next edition is a few months out.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Android-Reto-Meier/dp/1118949528

Reto's was the closest thing to an authoritative guide, being that he works at Google as a Developer Advocate.

Big Nerd and Commonsware are other well known ones.

u/chairface · 5 pointsr/programming

I started a few months ago, and I've found the Django Book to be increasingly outdated in the details. I prefer to grab the current development version, and use the (excellent) documentation to find what I need.

However, I do have these two books in my Amazon wishlist (neither is released yet):

http://www.amazon.com/Python-Development-Django-Developers-Library/dp/0132356139/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2Y9J8D5DZ1Q6J&colid=36CLI3JSVVGNY

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Django-Marty-Alchin/dp/1430210478/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3BEUD2OPTYOH6&colid=36CLI3JSVVGNY

I will probably read a few reviews before buying them.

u/al3x3691 · 4 pointsr/biology

Ecology graduate student here, finishing up my first course in R. We used R for Dummies, which was a nice little reference book for when we weren't sure about certain syntaxes or commands. I honestly didn't use textbooks most of the time, I learned mostly through the lectures and online forums. Also, not sure how frequently it is used since this class has been my first exposure to the language, but R Studio is your new best friend.

u/kogsworth · 3 pointsr/PHP

This book helped me boost my PHP programming to a whole new level, hope it helps you as well. Also look into frameworks like Symfony or Laravel, they're definitely worth learning if you want to be serious about PHP

u/aromas · 3 pointsr/javascript

rjett's excellent list and

DOM Scripting really helped me get my head around JS and the DOM. Once I grokked all that book had to offer moving to and understanding jQuery was a snap.

Bulletproof Ajax was an excellent follow-up to Keith's DOM Scripting.

u/pugsby · 3 pointsr/Android

I'd suggest Google App Inventor to get your feet wet in Android development. You can really pick it up and have a working app in minutes and you can see it live on your phone.

My cousin is Jason Tyler, and he's author of App Inventor for Android and he's released some great free tutorials on his YouTube channel. Check 'em out!

Update: His book is now shipping and in stores (wasn't earlier today).

u/neilhighley · 3 pointsr/VisualStudio

I don't think you don't need to use Visual Studio. This is certainly a job which VBA was created for within MS Word and will do everything that you want.
You can use the Document object that can load in a file and pull out what you need.
Ultimately, learn Office Word 365 thoroughly and VBA to extend rather than Visual Studio. Visual Studio is an IDE for programming languages, and as such you will need to learn the programming language to use and how to package and deliver the software.
Office has VBA to extend functionality in Office Applications, and as such is more suited to what you wish to do.

See : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/word/concepts/working-with-word/working-with-document-objects
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-VBA-Microsoft-Office-2016/dp/1119225388/
https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/office-365-developer-overview-13986

u/raindogmx · 2 pointsr/ASPNET

Get this book: Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 in C# by Matthew MacDonald

It will take you anywhere from 1 to 4 months depending on your proficiency and skills.

It will teach you the basics about the current state of the technology. ASP.NET is old and it has gone through several distinct iterations but this book should be good enough to get you going.

You will not become an expert but you will be competent enough to work by yourself or as an entry level coder in an MVC team.

edit: You will also need to get Begginning ASP.NET MVC 4.0 if the company is using MVC. It will add 1 to 3 months to your plans.

u/obiwan90 · 2 pointsr/Python

Formatted for a little better readability:

> C++ is my favourite language. I have four books for you.

> 1. Exploring C++11 by Ray Lischner. C++ is extremely complicated and this book will help you get up to speed programming with C++ and also understand it.
> 2. Programming – Principles and Practice Using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup. Even though this book is for beginners even seasoned programmers from other languages will gain huge insight for using/programming with C++ from the C++ creator himself.
> 3. The C++ Programming Language (4th Ed.) by Bjarne Stroustrup. Everything (99%) you need to know about the language is there. You can use it as a tutorial or reference.
> 4. Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers. As I said above C++ is complicated and quirky and the info in this book will help you understanding some of the language's 'subtleties'.

> Other links:

> The home of Standard C++ on the web
>
Nice online reference
> * Bjarne Stroustrup's homepage

> Of course there are more books I'd recommend and more links but these I hope will get you started. Get "Exploring C++11" first!

Edit: well, somebody deleted their comment. That makes mine look a little less funny. Removed the offending bits...

u/Deslan · 2 pointsr/learnpython

I have two books which I think are excellent, and both do what you describe.

One is Rapid GUI programming with Python and Qt which teaches you GUI programming through examples. It's a really good book, the only thing it lacks is that it's not Python3.

The other one is Python programming for the absolute beginner which lets you create games, one at a time, to teach you Python programming by example. This book also has a continuation called More Python programming for the absolute beginner which continues where the first one left off. I don't have the second book, but they both seem to be rather good and well liked by their readers. Like the Qt book I mentioned, these two are also Python2, which is a bit boring but they will at least get you started.

u/jawn- · 2 pointsr/django

Noone has mentioned it yet but hands down the best django book is Marty Alchin's Pro Django.

It might not be the best for a person new to programming, or new to MVC style frameworks. If you have some experience it will really transform the way you look at both django and python. I can't recommend it enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Django-Experts-Voice-Development/dp/1430210478/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331608592&sr=8-1

u/crowleysimon · 2 pointsr/androiddev

There is "Android Programming: Pushing the limits" It's about 18 months old, I haven't read it but it's been on my wishlist for a while, and the reviews seem very positive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118717376

u/dogewatch · 2 pointsr/androiddev

You will need one or more, or some combination of these. Don't like the plethora of choices give you analysis paralysis, just pick one and stick with it for a while.

Videos/courses

  1. Android basics by Udacity -> graduate to Android Nanodegree
  2. Lynda Android path. You can access lydna for free with a library card.

    Course

  3. Recently updated (9/18) Android code labs + slides by Google

    Books

  4. Commons ware online book
  5. Professional Android
  6. Big Nerd Ranch
u/jugglingbalance · 2 pointsr/Showerthoughts


If you are completely new to programming, don't worry, it's definitely not as hard as people believe it is.

The first important thing when you are learning any programming language is to be goal oriented, because this is what is going to keep you engaged and make you more likely to actually gain something from anything you read.

Think of the most tedious and repetitive task that can save you some time - that is going to be your best place to start. For instance, some formatting always has to be updated and it's time consuming, or you need to create a letter from information on a speadsheet every day etc. That's where you'll see your work pay off immediately, and that rush of having it work for you every day will really inspire you to keep going. For me, it was taking a bunch of files and porting the information to one place initially.

Once you know what your end goal is and what you want it to do, google it in every variation you can find. YouTube tutorials are actually where I started, just to see if what I was thinking of was possible. They have a lot of great resources for how to do certain things and you can find out if the concept is achievable this way really easily. Try to "steal" code or try examples that you find. (Just put a url in a comment or some indicator of where you found it from because you will forget later, and having the page it came from can significantly help when you are troubleshooting. This is attribution etiquette for programming, anyway.) Don't get discouraged if the code doesn’t work the way you imagined, this is going to allow you to see why it behaved the way it did later on and is a really important step to learning how things worked. Besides, with anything you do, you will likely have to mold it so much to your project, it will end up being more your work than anyone else's in the end either way.

[Wise Owl Tutorials] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHO5NIcZAc4&list=PLNIs-AWhQzckr8Dgmgb3akx_gFMnpxTN5) are some of the most thorough and logically laid out tutorials I have seen for VBA and I heartily recommend this if you learn better through video - he's pretty much made a full course of it.

Then, I would say dive in and find out how the language itself works for a little bit. Read about variables, if statements (and variations of these), and loops.

Variables are the placeholders for your data, and using the right ones in VBA means that you can make your program run faster or slower, so it definitely helps to get an understanding of these and what they do early.

If statements and operators and their variations are the parameters that determine what happens. (If dog does not = fed, then feed dog.) These are the logic that everything runs on. You would be surprised how much coding comes down to statements like the dog example.

Loops are how your program is able to do a few things to a large data set in very little time in a structured way. (For each dog, if dog is not fed, then feed dog, then move onto the next dog.) These are also ubiquitous in all programming languages, but the syntax varies between language. This is how those if statements become really powerful.

If you are like me, and learn well from books, these two have been the best ones I've found:

[Excel 2016 Power Programming with VBA (Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf)] (https://www.amazon.com/Excel-Power-Programming-Spreadsheets-Bookshelf/dp/1119067723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539050489&sr=8-1&keywords=john+walkenbach+excel+2016+vba)
This book is great for learning from the very beginning, especially if you don't have any previous programming knowledge. It will walk you through everything in a very easy to read way and get you dreaming about the possibilities with VBA. It also shows you why you may end up wanting to get detailed in the ways you think about variables etc with timed examples. I used the 2013 edition of this book and I was very pleased. This is a great choice as your first book covering the basics.

Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 2016:
This book is the one I used the most out of all of the books that I bought on the subject. It has some really excellent examples of things you may not have even imagined could be done in VBA that give the language a lot of power and usefulness. I still refer to it, even though I outgrew all of my other books. It spells out a lot of the basics as well, and if I had to refer to VBA on a desert island, this would be the only book I would bring. (Although the idea of having to refer to VBA on a desert island is a special kind of nightmare, even for someone like me who loves it.)

If you can only afford one of these, definitely get this one - the first one is great for baby steps but becomes outgrown quickly. I recommend it mostly because it does an excellent job of explaining programming if you have never done it before.

The Spreadsheet Guru has some really basic things ranging to some more advanced concepts and is not a bad place to start learning some quick fixes.

Excel Macro Mastery is great for getting to know how the moving parts work, especially with some of the complex data types that it can be a little hard to wrap your head around as a newcomer. This site has some times when it will try to sell you on his program, but it's worth a little annoyance for the truly good advice:

Excel Virtuoso is excellent for advanced program structures and how to make VBA act more like an object oriented programming language. It may be good for some of the earlier stuff, but this is when I found ways to do things that most people don't seem to know it can, including ways to make custom classes for data do things that are not very well known and only glossed over in most VBA programming books. It's been a godsend for me, and is the cornerstone that a lot of my work actually hinges on as the project I took on was far more complex than the scope of most macros, which are quick and simple maneuvers primarily.

But don't limit yourself to these resources. Look everywhere when you are trying to learn and don't fret overly with whether you are doing something right or wrong. Make it, test it, troubleshoot it, and improve.

The computer will not explode if you do something wrong. VBA is meant to be like a fisher price language because the intent of providing it is more for office workers than full blown programmers. At worst, your program will shut down and you may have to end the task in task manager or reboot your computer. This is rare. Most times, the compiler will remind you that you missed some part of syntax, which is a quick and easy fix that even advanced programmers have to deal with all of the time.

Feel free to look at places like stack overflow, but take all of this advice with a grain of salt, because there are normally at least 20 ways to do something (and that is on the low end) and everyone can get a little protective of their way. I use this as more of a brainstorming effort.

And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to you. If I haven't dealt with it already, I may be able to point you in the right direction. :)

Also, if you're interested in learning programming in general, this is an awesome list of coding courses and where to find free coding courses that freecodecamp sent out this summer:
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/500-free-online-programming-computer-science-courses-you-can-start-in-august-bc1bcac1af5e

u/edhdz1 · 1 pointr/u_edhdz1

Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 in C# (Experts Voice in .Net) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430242515/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_H8SrDbKG5XQ23

u/ultimape · 1 pointr/cscareerquestions

FYI: Python managed to eek out the most widely used computer science language used to teach programming in universities.

Honestly, learning how to program is a different beast from learning how to program well in a certain language. Choose one that seems to have the most resources you find useful.

Personally, if I had to teach someone from scratch, I'd go with Adventures in Minecraft. If you were of a childish disposition (given your language), it might be a great fit.

You also might consider C# or Scala - there are some good intro to programming courses for those languages. This book teaches a beginning user how to do basically everything upto and including using linux command line etc using Scala.

u/Hook3d · 1 pointr/compsci

Variables and values (Scala), statements, expressions, conditionals and branching, functions, recursion, iteration (loops), simple collections (list, array), basic data structures (string, trees, queue and priority queue, etc.), (file) input and output, etc. Pretty much everything you would imagine a 2-semester intro course would cover.

A big part of the two intro courses was the development of a project over the course of each semester, which required a substantial amount of coding. (I implemented Snake for CS I, and tried and failed to implement a working tower defense game in CS II.)

Here's the book if you are interested.

u/Fuzzytotems · 1 pointr/gamedev

If you're starting the game design program at Full Sail, I'll tell you which books to not buy (you'll likely receive these 2 in the program):

http://www.amazon.com/UDK-Game-Development-Alan-Thorn/dp/1435460189/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1376548834&sr=8-5&keywords=Unreal+Development+Kit

http://www.amazon.com/Unreal-Game-Development-Ashish-Amresh/dp/1568814593/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1376548834&sr=8-8&keywords=Unreal+Development+Kit

I would also get behind the scripting book Morrok mentioned, so I won't list it.

u/meta30403 · 1 pointr/udk

If you are willing to spend some money, UDK Game Developmen by Alan Thorn is a nice book to start.

u/Magdusia · 1 pointr/Gifts

R For Dummies :D

Russian roulette - based games

Rings

Razor

Roses

u/kson34 · 1 pointr/PHP

For PHP I would definately recommend PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice. Pro PHP Refactoring is also pretty good. And the latest book on PHP Security is good too.

For javascript I would start with the Good Parts, go to Javascript Enlightenment and read what is available in EAP for Secrets of the Javascript Ninjas because although the book may never actually be finished what is there is worth 30 average javascript books.

u/unappreciatedartist · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I don't know if this will help, but this is the method I took (I have a background in graphic design, marketing, and advertising). I first went to some hacker friends who are very good at what they do and showed them all kinds of mockups, illustrations, and venn diagrams, everything about how everything would work. I even wrote out the logic for some of my algorithims in plain english.

Their response: they thought it was an interesting idea, but being the awesome programmers that they were, they had very high paying jobs, and their own side jobs, so they didn't have time to work on my project. They did however give me some great advice: (Note I already knew css and html) They said start with these 3 books:
Jquery Novice to Ninja which really helped me get started with basic animation techniques and understand a bit of Jquery. This really helped me lead into javascript programming with Dom Scripting. This book was great for really fleshing out what the jquery was doing, and helped me with a lot of other questions. I feel very comfortable working in jquery and javascript now. The last book they recommended for me was php solutions to teach me about teh back end of what I wanted to build.

Now learning on my own with just a couple books, stackoverflow, and a few questions sent to my friends/mentors was not easy by any means, but I don't regret it for a second.

Some might not like my choices of using jquery, javascript, or php, but one of the reasons my friends recommended me using those languages in particular was how much documentation is readily available, making them a little easier then some other launguages to learn on your own.

Good luck to you.

u/FloatableCat · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

Since no one has recommended any books yet I would say get this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustrated-2010-Experts-Voice-NET/dp/143023282X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343053768&sr=8-1

I used it recently to brush up on my knowledge before some job interviews and still found it interesting after working as a programmer for 3 years nearly.

Also Stackoverflow.com is your friend, not just for c# but you can get a lot of info from there on problems you are having, as well as asking for help.

u/topher_r · 1 pointr/programming

Nice, thanks. Though it's from 1995 at the latest (according to the site) while there is a recent publication of the Dragon book as recently as 2013 with up to date topics.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Compilers-Principles-Techniques-V-Aho/dp/1292024348/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466021429&sr=8-1&keywords=compilers+principles+techniques+and+tools

u/Kyle1102 · 1 pointr/AskMen

This, I'm embarrassed to say, I've been thinking of getting a new one though, I might consider primer plus now you've mentioned it. :) I'm sure I've seen that book in my Uni's library one time or something quite similar, I'll have to have a check sometime.