Ask HN: What book to read to get a footing in CS theory?

Re:Ask HN: What book to read to get a footing in CS theory? by jonathanfoster on Sunday August 18, 2019 @10:46AM (#20730415)

Before deep diving into CS theory, I would go deeper into programming first to better understand how a computer really works. The best intro on this topic I found is "Programming from the Ground Up" by Jonathan Bartlett [1].

"Programming from the Ground Up" starts at the bottom with CPU architecture and goes up from there to how functions work, dealing with files, code libraries, high-level languages, etc. Having a solid understanding here will provide immediate benefits in coding and serve as a strong foundation for some of the other recommended texts.

If you're interested, I recommend buying directly from Bartlett Publishing [1]. Bartlett published the book under the GNU Free Documentation License and there are multiple copy-cat versions on Amazon.

[1] http://www.bartlettpublishing.com/site/catalog/programming-f...

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Re:Ask HN: What book to read to get a footing in CS theory? by srikz on Sunday August 18, 2019 @12:29PM (#20731178)

Would like to add Nand2Tetris[1] which falls in a similar category.

[1]: https://www.nand2tetris.org/

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Re:Ask HN: What book to read to get a footing in CS theory? by bjackman on Friday August 23, 2019 @05:46AM (#20775869)

I actually recommended this to her already - the book (The Elements of Computing Systems) of the same course was the first programming text I ever read. Really enthralling!

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