What is the single most influential book every programmer should read? | Hacker News Reader

What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

stackoverflow.com

10 pointsscorpion0325 comments

"The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman."

   (from fortune)

Seems like a silly question. Anyone who limits themselves to one single most influential book isn't going to go very far in programming, so why bother even arguing over whether SICP is better than Information Rules or Visual Basic for Dummies.

Did you even both to read the few sentences that the post contained? Judging by your post, I don't think you did.

"If you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be?"

I fail to see how that implies limiting oneself to a single book...

The point is still "one book" is it not? I was being a bit facetious about 'limiting oneself to one book', which obviously no one is going to do, but the concept is, IMO, a valid one - it's useless to only read one book. There are lots of good ones, important in their own ways.

One Book to rule them all

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