List of freely available programming books (opens in new tab)

I guess someone could take the list, and put a rate up next to each book to see which ones people think are actually the quality books.

I still rate paper books over scanning through pdf for a solution or fix to a book. I'm definitely wrong though as the rest of the world values searchability over knowledge.

It does help me. Decent data for a topic-specific search engine, NLP, etc.

What I usually do when it comes to finding good books is hitting amazon and see the reviews and recommendations. But I already have a big stack of great books that I should finish instead of wasting too much time looking for more.

That would be a great weekend project for someone ;)

If a rating and/or description exists online somewhere, it/they can be retrieved and displayed. Then add a way to make ratings & reviews, give them all some sorting options, and you'll have a nice, useful tool for programmers.

I'd do it, but I already have a long list of weekend projects. :P

I tried to compile such list in past, see http://www.strchr.com/links

The books are on different topics. You only read the ones you want to.

I never pursued a comp sci degree in college, and it's possible that you're right, their subject matter is so basic you don't need to actually take classes to learn the content. I guess you could further argue that sites like Hacker News are so good at helping you meet like-minded coders that literally living with people who have the same passions doesn't yield the same reward that it used to.

That said:

> plus all the required coursework that might be completely unnecessary for your goals.

These were the courses I have become most thankful for at college. I've taken courses on religion, existentialism, the history of the Enlightenment, an analysis of film genres, a course on silent cinema, a flamenco course, and a number of other classes which each incidentally taught me a new way to look at the world. A liberal arts education is a valuable thing, and it's so much easier to grasp its meaning when you're guided there by a number of skilled, caring professors than when you try and read your way to the same goal. I have no doubt that one day people will create a virtual experience that duplicates or improves on what my college experience has been like, but so far nothing comes close.

In fact, one of my only regrets at college was that it didn't make math or science courses mandatory. I'm regretting more and more that my science knowledge was a high school year of biology, chemistry, and physics apiece. I suspect that taking college courses in the sciences would have exposed me to teachers talented enough to make learning those subjects worthwhile. And it's difficult to search for books about rekindling your passions in the sciences; I find the field pretty obscure and not at all easy to navigate on my own.

In theory, yes. The student would have to be highly self motivated, but this is actually how I learned to program, until I started joining open source projects. It's cost effective, and in my experience, the majority of engineering jobs (especially in startups) that such a student would apply for care more about your ability to code than your degree. A recent topic here actually showed that most programmers applying for a job can't do all but the simplest of programming tasks in languages they list on their resumés. There are fields where a degree is essential, like medical fields with a lot of hands on work. But the beauty of programming fields is that you can learn from the machine that is principally used in programming: the computer.

I've been looking for something like this for a long time - thanks. I'm also interesting in finding something that operates at a level removed from this - making diagrams of the creative process itself, as you go down routes and reach dead ends, and then fork from an earlier path. If readers know of anything like this please let me know.

I remember having an excel class in high school as a required elective. Spreadsheets are important of course. It's amazing how many white collar office people still don't know the basics of it -- but how hard is it to fit in two weeks of simple scripting? I think kids learning even just the bare mechanics of programming could be better off

That's already on the list, but thanks anyway.