Y Hacker News Books

Books I recommend to my software engineering students ↗

The books people recommended

2020-04-23 · 411 points · 116 comments · 40 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.

  1. 23

    The Mythical Man-Month

    Frederick Brooks Jr.

    23 here · 137 all-time · #13 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,811 ratings on Amazon
  2. 5

    Antifragile

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    5 here · 100 all-time · #29 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 8,430 ratings on Amazon
  3. 4

    Design Patterns

    Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

    4 here · 80 all-time · #42 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 27 ratings on Amazon
  4. 4

    Peopleware

    Tom DeMarco

    4 here · 62 all-time · #59 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,189 ratings on Amazon
  5. 4Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow

    Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow

    Aurélien Géron

    4 here · 5 all-time · #1512 overall

  6. 3

    The Design of Everyday Things

    Don Norman

    3 here · 95 all-time · #33 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 8,629 ratings on Amazon
  7. 2

    The Pragmatic Programmer

    Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

    2 here · 102 all-time · #26 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 3,644 ratings on Amazon
  8. 2

    Clean Code

    Robert C. Martin

    2 here · 47 all-time · #91 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 6,810 ratings on Amazon
  9. 2The Psychology of Computer Programming

    The Psychology of Computer Programming

    Gerald M. Weinberg

    2 here · 16 all-time · #410 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.0 out of 5, 140 ratings on Amazon
  10. 2The Histories

    The Histories

    Tacitus

    2 here · 9 all-time · #707 overall

  11. 2The Craft of Prolog

    The Craft of Prolog

    Richard O'Keefe

    2 here · 3 all-time · #2452 overall

  12. 2No Silver Bullet

    No Silver Bullet

    Frederick Brooks

    2 here · 3 all-time · #2462 overall

  13. 1

    Code Complete

    Steve McConnell

    1 here · 108 all-time · #22 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 1,353 ratings on Amazon
  14. 1

    The Soul of a New Machine

    Tracy Kidder

    1 here · 76 all-time · #43 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,741 ratings on Amazon
  15. 1

    The Phoenix Project

    Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

    1 here · 67 all-time · #56 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 14,975 ratings on Amazon
  16. 1

    The Alchemist

    Paulo Coelho

    1 here · 52 all-time · #77 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 184,313 ratings on Amazon
  17. 1

    Founders at Work

    Jessica Livingston

    1 here · 51 all-time · #80 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 689 ratings on Amazon
  18. 1

    Outliers

    Malcolm Gladwell

    1 here · 44 all-time · #103 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 39,353 ratings on Amazon
  19. 1

    Creativity Inc.

    Ed Catmull

    1 here · 43 all-time · #107 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 10,683 ratings on Amazon
  20. 1

    How to Solve It

    George Polya

    1 here · 42 all-time · #115 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,615 ratings on Amazon
  21. 1A Philosophy of Software Design

    A Philosophy of Software Design

    John Ousterhout

    1 here · 42 all-time · #116 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 2,832 ratings on Amazon
  22. 1

    How to Read a Book

    Mortimer J. Adler

    1 here · 31 all-time · #182 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 8,081 ratings on Amazon
  23. 1

    JavaScript: The Good Parts

    Douglas Crockford

    1 here · 28 all-time · #206 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 1,478 ratings on Amazon
  24. 1Coders at Work

    Coders at Work

    Peter Seibel

    1 here · 27 all-time · #213 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 330 ratings on Amazon
  25. 1

    Skunk Works

    Ben Rich

    1 here · 21 all-time · #302 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 5,053 ratings on Amazon
  26. 1A Pattern Language

    A Pattern Language

    Christopher Alexander

    1 here · 19 all-time · #331 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,073 ratings on Amazon
  27. 1

    An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

    Gerald M. Weinberg

    1 here · 19 all-time · #336 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.0 out of 5, 155 ratings on Amazon
  28. 1

    Becoming a Technical Leader

    Gerald M. Weinberg

    1 here · 19 all-time · #338 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 363 ratings on Amazon
  29. 1Software Tools

    Software Tools

    Kernighan and Plauger

    1 here · 12 all-time · #542 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 29 ratings on Amazon
  30. 1Game Programming Patterns

    Game Programming Patterns

    Robert Nystrom

    1 here · 11 all-time · #577 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,556 ratings on Amazon
  31. 1The Elements of Programming Style

    The Elements of Programming Style

    Brian Kernighan and P. J. Plauger

    1 here · 9 all-time · #697 overall

  32. 1The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

    The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

    Alan Cooper

    1 here · 8 all-time · #781 overall

  33. 1A Discipline of Programming

    A Discipline of Programming

    Edsger Dijkstra

    1 here · 8 all-time · #805 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 27 ratings on Amazon
  34. 1The Art of Prolog

    The Art of Prolog

    Leon S. Sterling, Ehud Y. Shapiro

    1 here · 7 all-time · #923 overall

  35. 1Death March

    Death March

    Edward Yourdon

    1 here · 7 all-time · #1043 overall

  36. 1The Jargon File

    The Jargon File

    1 here · 6 all-time · #1224 overall

  37. 1The Architecture of Open Source Applications

    The Architecture of Open Source Applications

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1296 overall

  38. 1Dark Pools

    Dark Pools

    Scott Patterson

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1333 overall

  39. 1Making Things Happen

    Making Things Happen

    Scott Berkun

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1575 overall

  40. 1Extreme Programming Explained

    Extreme Programming Explained

    Kent Beck

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2190 overall