Welcome to my virutal library. This is where I keep track of all the books I currently have, or plan to read in the future. Most of the library revolves around tech related topics like computer science, tech history, software engineering... but you'll also find books on broader subjects like pshycology, philosphy, and life in general. You can click "Read journey" to see a timeline of my live, unfiltered thoughts as I read through each book.
Unix: A History and a Memoir
Brian Kernighan telling the story of how Unix was born. I keep reading small stories here and there about Unix and Bell labs, it's time to hear the full story from the man himself.
📍 Chapter 2 of 922% complete
It's always appreciated when the author gives a detailed description of the office. How it was laid out, who sat next to whom, how people met and gathered, etc. This level of details helps the reader mentally teleport into that moment as if they were truly there.
CODE: The hidden language of computer hardware and software
One of my favorite authors. Charles Petzold does a great job explaining how computers work from first principles starting with electricity, while giving plenty of historical context to how things evolved in the digital world. An amazing book and highly recommended. (Check the second edition)
📍 Chapter 28 of 28100% complete
What a fun read! Definitely a book I would recommend to others, especially new comers to the field. Will prepare the verdict and publish it in the next few days.
The Soul of a New Machine
A historical story about the competition between Data General and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) back in the 1970s as they battled for dominance in the beginning of the minicomputer era. This competition gave birth to the MV/8000 computer, which seems to have been developed under very interesting "business" circumstances.
📍 Chapter 6 of 1638% complete
They decided to hire talented fresh grads because [these kids still don't know what they can't do] -- What a contrast with what's happening in the field nowadays.
Crafting interpreters
Very good book about interpreters and programming languages. Readers end up building one interpreter with Java, and a faster one using C. The C part is rich and explores different interesting topics like Garbage collectors, dynamic arrays, hash tables and much more.
📍 Chapter 19 of 3063% complete
The strings chapter was not bad. I was hoping he would discuss the pros/cons of strings in C, how modern languages tried representing strings differently and why. But this discussion was missing unfortunately.
Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
A book that I've seen recommended a lot for those interested in diving into Operating systems concepts. It's available online for free with live lectures by the author himself at the university of Wisconsin. After checking few chapters and videos, I will go for this one since the quality seems to be decent and Remzi is doing a good job presenting topics in the videos and diving deeper in the book.
📍 Chapter 36 of 5763% complete
Concurrency deserves a deep dive on its own!
The Annotated Turing
Another classic by Charles Petzold, going over the Turing machine paper written by Turing himself, while explaining related maths concepts and theory of computation.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Arrived - Will probably prioritize some other topics next; to be scheduled for later this year
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence
Best book I came across so far regarding the history of AI
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Arrived; Starting date to be determined soon
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
The book everyone recommends when building complex systems, distributed systems, etc. The author was a 'recurser' in 2015. Will be interesting to read this one.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Looks like a new version of the book will be released by the end of the year, so I'll wait for that.
Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned
Interesting book discussing greatness and how it's not planned, it's the result of exploration and discovery. The title caught my attention but I don't have enough information about the book. To check at some point in time.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
The innovators
The story of the digital revolution and how historical figures contributed to this field, starting with Ada Lovelace, Turing, Von Neumann, up to Tim Berners Lee and Larry Page.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
The code book
Historical survey of cryptography from the Roman times with the use of the Caesar cipher up to the most modern cryptographic developments (public key, RSA, etc). Heard a lot of good things about this book, looking forward to starting it.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
High Performance Browser Networking
Focused on modern browser networking
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
Masters of Doom
Story about John Carmack and John Romero impacts in the world while creating Doom and Quake games. The impact gaming industry had on the world is not to be underestimated.
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
How the Internet Happened
From Netscape to iPhone. The story of how the internet started
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
The Chip
Story about how two American engineers created the microchip
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet
Computer: A history of the information machine
A book recommended by Petzold himself, it's a historical overview following the timeline of how the field evolved starting with Babbage up to World Wide Web (and more stuff in modern days in the 4th edition).
📍 Chapter 0 of 00% complete
Not planned yet