It's about a man trying to find satori. While I don't agree with Buddhism, it can be a very thought provoking novel, as long as you remove the religious connotations. It's really helped me become a better programmer by removing the things in life that get in the way of my work.
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Anonymous2009-12-03 6:37
SICP by Sussman and Abelson
I think you damn well know why
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Anonymous2009-12-03 6:40
>>1,2
i don't read fiction and/or religious books.
read K&R （ ≖‿≖）
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Anonymous2009-12-03 7:10
Bad thoughts - A guide to clear thinking by Jamie Whyte
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Anonymous2009-12-03 9:06
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides.
Siddhartha is mush-brained drivel by a pseudo-intellectual cockpouch. It's right up there with Gödel, Escher, Bach and On the Road as things that idiots read to make people think they're smart.
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Anonymous2009-12-05 15:32
SICP is mush-brained drivel by a pseudo-intellectual cockpouch. It's right up there with TAOCP and K&R as things that idiots read to make people think they're smart.
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Anonymous2009-12-05 15:34
>>42
Yay someone else that doesn't like On The Road. I tried it yeeeears ago but only got like half through. Bukowski is much more raw and aewsome
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Anonymous2009-12-05 15:35
HAX THY ANUS
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Haxus the Wise2009-12-05 16:31
Inspiration for the Interactive Generation is mush-brained drivel by a pseudo-intellectual cockpuch. It's right up there with Reddit and XKCD as things that idiots read to make people think they're smart.
>>44
Before I read On The Road, I was expecting to enjoy it, but then I finally got around to reading it, and hated it. The author took what could've been an exciting journey of self-discovery and shit and turned it into an interminable death march.
Before I read Inspiration for the Interactive Generation, I was expecting to hate it, but then I finally got around to reading it, and enjoyed it. The author seizes an art form by the throat and drags it to its apex.
>>50
Allow me to quote the only authority that matters:
Pretentious crap. Hofstadter is about as interesting and insightful as a 14-year-old stoner who got a hold of some of his dad's reference books. The actual content of this book could fit in under a hundred pages, but Hofstadter feels it necessary to pack on pages upon pages upon pages of barely-relevant filler, much of it apparently just to show off with the fact that he read some classical Greek poetry once.
To be fair, it is a very ambitious book, and one that could have turned out very interestingly, but it's also plainly obvious Hofstadter just wasn't up to the job. The whole thing is a massive (and I do mean that literally) waste of time, though since it does have a knack for making dumb people feel smart, it will undoubtedly appeal to the xkcd crowd.
Even if none of them will ever actually finish the whole thing.
In conclusion, back to xkcd, please.
>>53
There's only 3 people on /prog/: you, me, and The Sussman. And I'm not Xarn, so either you're Xarn (which is doubtful because I’m sure he would recognise his own review), so that leaves us with one alternative. Xarn is The Sussman.
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Anonymous2009-12-06 13:00
>>52
A thought came to me earlier today: The xkcd fucktards are the ones that like to pretend they are autistic so they can feel special about being fucking walking advertisements for euthanasia. Are these not the same people who think Ender's Game is like, so true man, they don't understand my genius? Somewhat ironically the same fucktards are now all confused after it turned out Arse Scott Card doesn't like faggots.
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Anonymous2009-12-06 13:58
>>55
So the guy doesn't like meatballs, why is that a big deal?
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Anonymous2009-12-06 14:11
Regardless of what you think is useful computer knowledge, this book does a bad job of presenting its topics. Especially for beginners, this book is very frustrating. The first few chapters often employ obscure mathematical tricks as examples of how the computing concepts can be applied. In the end, the reader doesn't see the forest for the trees and tries to figure out the math just to understand what the code samples are doing. Other parts of the book either mention in passing, or devote very little space to interesting ideas, and instead devote pages and pages to something fundamental, to the point that it gets very boring. Finally, I personally think this book is poorly organized. The first four chapters try to focus on maximum abstraction, and the last chapter presents a totally oposing view of computers--as register machines...which is a completely different paradigm. This confuses many people.
All in all, as long as you are careful PHP is a great web development tool due to its versatility and ease of use. One final note is that because it is an open source product, it is included in many famous ‘free’ web development kits such as L.A.M.P. This includes Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP. All the things you need to develop and host your website, all are free and open source.
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Anonymous2009-12-07 4:31
Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Sipser