alt Hacker NewsUnfortunately even in the old days, a truly good programming book like you’re describing was depressingly rare.
Younger me really enjoyed some of the game programming books by Andre Lamothe.
Most “Learn Language X” books were terrible with over focus on syntax and very little thought into organization.
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NikolaNovak • today at 12:56 AM
Agreed, Books on specific programming language were indeed tricky.
I found books on architecture, systems, or patterns, were more available. E.g. On relational database optimization principles, or Unix system administration, or graphics algorithms and rendering math, etc :)
Apparently the guy who wrote the Camel book on Perl made less than $1000 from that book. I was shocked when I heard about that because back in the day when I was learning that book was incredibly popular and seemed to be everywhere.
EDIT: Edited, not wrote. My bad. That's a crucial distinction. Also, I meant the Llama book, not the Camel book.