Solved Book recommendation on FreeBSD/UNIX and related topics in the mathematics and computer

A

a6h

The topic of this thread is self-explanatory. Please, use your common sense (neither common nor sense)
 
  1. Structured Programming (1972 - Dijkstra, Hoare and Dahl): On structured programming.
  2. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet (1998 - Katie Hafner): A story about internet.
  3. The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994 - Simson Garfinkel): A collection of Unix-Haters mailing list messages
 
wolffnx said:
the first will I read be "The Unix-Haters" seems fun to read
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It is, indeed. Not only funny, there's much truth in it. E.g. the UNIXism: "It was hard to write, it should be hard to use."
 
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Unix is simple (not hard to write?), and it is flexible, powerful and easy to use. That is the story.
I would recommend the many original papers of Ritchie and Thompson.
 
vigole said:
  1. Structured Programming (1972 - Dijkstra, Hoare and Dahl): On structured programming.
  2. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet (1998 - Katie Hafner): A story about internet.
  3. The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994 - Simson Garfinkel): A collection of Unix-Haters mailing list messages
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#1 - BASIC rulez!!

I read # 2 last year. It's often a hard read but well worth it to get the story behind networking and packet switching and how the first thing that they did instead of work was send 'email messages' to each other! Apparently a "dope deal" was done in California over the newly formed ARPANET.
It is well worth the read.

I've read some of 3, it's funny but very dated.

My recommendations:
1. Operating System Concepts - Silberschatz & Galvin
2. Operating Systems - Internals and Design Principles - Stallings (because it at least deals somewhat with embedded)
3. Operating Systems - Design and Implementation - Tanenbaum and Woodhull (because its focus is micro kernels and they are the best).

I should also note, Tanenbaum has written "Modern Operating Systems" with Herbert Bos. A wider ranging OS book.
 
mjollnir said:
THE BOOK of Proofs (Aigner/Ziegler)
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Thanks for mentioning that. I read (skimming to be exact!) a translation copy of that book, many years ago. I didn't understand a word (proof, concept, ...) . That was way over my head.
mark_j said:
[...] Stallings [...] Tanenbaum [...]
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Stallings and Tanenbaum works are great. I have only one problem. I don't know, maybe it's only me, but Tanenbaum is very long-winded.
 
I like these:

- The C Programming Language
- The UNIX Programming Environment
- The AWK Programming Language

I recommend them even if you dislike programming (even in C or AWK). They provide a great amount of history and you can almost see how these languages (and thus other languages) have developed to match the constraints at the time.

As for programming: the following is great.

- Motif Programming: The Essentials and More

I have only known one book to be able to make Motif programming fun! ;)
 
  • How to Solve It (1945, George Pólya): on problem solving.
  • An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers (1938, Hardy and Wright): on arithmetic.
  • Applied Cryptography (1996, Bruce Schneier): on cryptography.
 
vigole said:
  • How to Solve It (1945, George Pólya): on problem solving.
  • An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers (1938, Hardy and Wright): on arithmetic.
  • Applied Cryptography (1996, Bruce Schneier): on cryptography.
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What a wonderful antiquarian bundle!
For becoming a skilled FreeBSD/UNIX user it is probably as helpful as pointing to ISBN 2221044266 *).

*) A "short wind" dedicated to mjollnir
 
getopt I wanted to find and suggest a new book for cryptography, suitable for FreeBSD but I'm not aware of any specific title. I think the Schneier's is still the best. It's rather old, but I don't think it causes any problem. Thus I settled on the Schneier's book.
I think cryptography as a subject is very hard. But I believe having just a little background on arithmetic, aka number theory is helpful. P.S. I love the word arithmetic more than Number Theory! My book collection is very old, but I don't have a copy of Hardy/Wright. Hence the second item is something that I have to consider to find and read too!
Then there's George Pólya. There's always considerable discussions on different medium about computer languages, operating systems and frameworks. I argue that, for the most part such rants are destructive. I think knowing to how solve problems, especially in mathematics; also having a good understanding of algorithms and data structures, is more important than hoarding a truck load of languages and frameworks. These are the reason why I've suggested those three books.
 
vigole said:
Following link, i.e. UNIX as IDE
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I may have posted this one before but if you liked that blog post, then this book is definitely one for you:

UNIX (R) Programming Environment (Prentice-Hall Software Series): Amazon.co.uk: Kernighan, Brian W.: 9780139376993: Books

Buy UNIX (R) Programming Environment (Prentice-Hall Software Series) by Kernighan, Brian W. (ISBN: 9780139376993) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk

It is practical and yet has a great amount of lost history included for the digital archeologists among us ;)
 
vigole said:
  • How to Solve It (1945, George Pólya): on problem solving.
  • An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers (1938, Hardy and Wright): on arithmetic.
  • Applied Cryptography (1996, Bruce Schneier): on cryptography.
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Unfortunately the libraries of Alexandria & Constantinople burnt down, and religious fanatics later on destroyed all the antique publications in the monasteries throughout Europe... So what we have is mostly modern stuff. Since the principles of thinking & solving problems did not change significantly for the last centuries, a book from 1945 might be considered modern.
 
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mjollnir said:
Unfortunately the libraries of Alexandria & Constantinople burnt down, and religious fanatics later on destroyed all the antique publications in the monasteries throughout Europe...
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So sad and yet, a few centuries from now people will be blaming the next academic genocide on the Kindle DRM servers being discontinued XD
 
I remember when ESR edited it, and then published it. That must have been in the early to mid 90s. It was quite a scandal: It turns out his hacker credentials are quite weak, and he mostly took the Jargon File (which Guy Steele had kept about 20 days earlier, and which was circulated online among true hackers) and turned it into a profitable book deal for himself. He did all that with relatively little knowledge of the computing culture that predated him; the book is sort of a snapshot of the 80s/90s era Usenet culture, mixed with older anecdotes from original Unix (meaning Bell labs, university departments, and corporate research labs), TOPS-10 and LISP culture. There are a lot of people in the hacker culture that predated him, who hated him for ruining the original version by diluting and popularizing it.

His contributions to open source are meager, except for the famous position paper with the cathedral and the bazaar.
 
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