The Shape of Code

The following is a list of the really interesting books I read this year (only one of which was actually published in 2015, everything has to work its way through several piles and being available online is a shortcut to the front of the queue). The list is short because I did not read many books.

The best way to learn about something is to do it and The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder ought to be required reading for all software developers. It is about creating human languages and provides a very practical introduction into how human languages are put together.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Yet more ammunition for moving Descartes‘s writings on philosophy into the same category as astrology and flat Earth theories.

I’m still working my way through Mining of Massive Datasets by Jure Leskovec, Anand Rajaraman and Jeff Ullman.

If you are thinking of learning R, then the best book (and the one I am recommending for a workshop I am running) is still: The R Book by Michael J. Crawley.

There are books piled next to my desk that might get mentioned next year.

I spend a lot more time reading blogs these days and Ben Thompson’s blog Stratechery is definitely my best find of the year.