The Little Schemer
Daniel P. Friedman, Matthias Felleisen
51 people recommended it in 30 threads, 2007–2026.
2 of those were in the last year.
2 commenters pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
The Little Schemer was great, too. This little book is worth much more than one who hadn't read it might think.
This book changed that, what it encouraged me to do is grab a pen and paper and try to work everything out myself[1]. It was such a fun read and i owe most of my understanding of functional programming to this book.
The Little Schemer is the most unique, most fun, most educational (in the sense that it _forces_ you to work your way through it) book that I've read. Moreover, it's a great way to grasp computation in a more abstract sense.
Reading these books well will teach you socratic method of teaching/learning, which is great in itself. And will help you teach yourself a wide variety of concepts.
Little Schemer helped me to understand the though process more than learning a specific language.
This book like no other just makes me smile. I read this right after I graduated and started my "real" learning in programming and math.
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