Ask HN: What will you suggest to fresh students of programming in 2023?

3 pointscurious164 comments

Someone has taken a new year's resolution of learning the skill of programming in a serious way. What will be your suggestions to them? Do you want them to keep in mind some specific advice, books, MOOCs, etc?

Help them get into this beautiful world.

View on HN

Study also the history of computing. It's a really powerful tool for gaining a deeper understanding of computing technolgies, how they work, and why they work that way.

Any specific books you have in mind?

It's difficult to make recommendations as the field is vast and every major technology, such as programming languages, computer architectures, or operating systems has its own history and I'm not familiar with general histories of computer science. So it's better to search for resources on specific technolgies, for example Unix. A good starting point is "UNIX: A History and a Memoir" by Brian Kernighan.

A few classics cited in one comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29771594

Recommendations by many, 154 comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22692281

Reply on news.ycombinator.com