The Shape of Code

Some suggestions for books this Christmas. As always, the timing of books I suggest is based on when they reach the top of my books-to-read pile, not when they were published.

“Life ascending: The ten great inventions of evolution” by Nick Lane. The latest thinking (as of 2010) on the major events in the evolution of life. Full of technical detail, very readable, and full of surprises (at least for me).

“How buildings learn” by Stewart Brand. Yes, I’m very late on this one. So building are just like software, people want to change them in ways not planned by their builders, they get put to all kinds of unexpected uses, some of them cannot keep up and get thrown away and rebuilt, while others age gracefully.

“Dead Man Working” by Cederström and Fleming is short and to the point (having an impact on me earlier in the year), while “No-Collar: The humane workplace and its hidden costs” by Andrew Ross is longer (first half is general, second a specific instance involving one company). Both have a coherent view work in the knowledge economy.

If you are into technical books on the knowledge economy, have a look at “Capitalism without capital” by Haskel and Westlake (the second half meanders off, covering alleged social consequences), and “Antitrust law in the new economy” by Mark R. Patterson (existing antitrust thinking is having a very hard time grappling with knowledge-based companies).

If you are into linguistics, then “Constraints on numerical expressions” by Chris Cummins (his PhD thesis is free) provides insight into implicit assumptions contained within numerical expressions (of the human conversation kind). A must read for anybody interested in automated fact checking.