How to Design Programs
Matthias Felleisen
21 people recommended it in 13 threads, 2014–2023.
What people on Hacker News said
Going through rigorous program design in Racket was a mind expanding experience.
How to Design Programs was super dense but it took me through the process of actually designing programs in a logical manner.
It teaches you how to think about data, types, abstraction, and creating mini languages/sets of functions for robust, adjustable, and maintainable code.
it's about learning to program rather than teaching a specific language.
I'm now convinced that everyone should go through that book (or an online course) and apply the newly found knowledge in real life.
Its "baby brother" _How to Design Programs_, with its design recipe approach, ingrained testing and iterative refinement in me early on.
Where it comes up
- Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read? 2023 · 4 recommendations
- Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects? 2023 · 3 recommendations
- Ask HN: What is the best programming book you've read? 2021 · 2 recommendations
- Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise? 2018 · 2 recommendations
- Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code? 2017 · 2 recommendations
- The “Build Your Own Redis” Book Is Completed 2023 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books 2018 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models? 2017 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read? 2017 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently? 2017 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What's the best programming book you've read recently? 2014 · 1 recommendation