At 12:56 PM 10/9/00 -0400, John Porter wrote:
>Dan Sugalski wrote:
> >
> > The Mythical Man-Month
> > Fred Brooks
>
>That reminds me: I highly recommended "Anti-Patterns":
> www.antipatterns.com/briefing
Nifty. I think it's another book to add to the pile. (I might finish the
pile by the time that perl 6 is released...)
> > Understanding Comics
> > Scott McCloud
> >
> > Tao Te Ching
> > Lao Tzu (translation by Ursula LeGuin)
> >
> > Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
> > Lewis Carroll
>
>Well, if we're going for balance, I'd suggest "The Runaway Universe",
> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738200689
>An excellent overview of modern cosmology for the layman.
Argh! Recreational reading! Go rub it in, why don't you? :-P
FWIW, I didn't add those three in there out of any sense of balance. They
really are in there as relevant to perl development. (Or at least I think
so...)
The big thing that Understanding Comics brings to perl development is
chapter 7. It it deals with the six stages of art which, as Scott says,
"...because the creation of *any* work in *any* medium will always follow a
certain path." And what we're doing is as much art as science or
engineering. (The six stages, from outside in, are Surface, Craft,
Structure, Idiom, Form, and Idea/Purpose. They're expressed a tad
differently for a utilitarian art like programming than they are for
something like comics or novels, but they're still there)
The Tao Te Ching is grand as a project management book because, well, the
one thing you need more than anything else when managing projects is a
sense of calm, serenity, and perspective. :)
Alice in Wonderland is, of course, the quintessential CS text. It never
hurts to keep in mind that everything you know could well be wrong. :)
> > Introduction to Algorithms
> > Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, and Ronald L. Rivest
>
>This is probably the best algorithms book on the market; it is
>encyclopedic. More up-to-date than Knuth, and also much easier
>to comprehend for most people.
And large enough to mug someone, if need be. (Like if you just paid for the
silly thing... :)
> > Internetworking with TCP/IP vol 1 4th edition
> > Douglas E. Comper
>
>(that's "Comer", btw.) The whole series is good -- Volumns I-II-III,
>and "The Internet Message: Closing the Book with Electronic Mail", by
>Marshall T. Rose.
Gah. Typos. I don't have volumes 2 or 3 handy, though they're also on the
list. I'd forgotten about Rose's book--I think I have that in a box somewhere.
>I personally can't resist the urge to throw all the CS classics
>in there, particularly "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer
>Programs"; also "Design Patterns" (the "Gang of Four" book).
Works for me. I'll get the first draft of the reading list done as soon as
I can manage, and then folks can add to it as they think appropriate. I'd
like to keep the list relatively focused on books directly related to perl
development, but there's no reason we can't have a section on good CS
background texts.
Dan
--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
[EMAIL PROTECTED] have teddy bears and even
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