In no particular order, these are the books that I've wanted to get through in the near future. Most of them that I've started reading, I liked. If you know any other good reads, please share =)
SICP - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
This is the textbook they use to teach Scheme at MIT. HtDP was developed from SICP, because apparently some people (like us) are too dumb to go through with HtDP. It teaches programming quite differently from the way D does it, and also different from the techniques used in CS135/6. This is the real thing. I got stuck at end of chapter 2, and couldn't seem to move past there.... The entire book can be found online at http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
CLRS - Introduction to Algorithms
The book I was reading before I started typing this. It's a pretty rigorous book - when you flip through it you'll see words like THEORM, LEMMA, PROOF... very mathematical. Downside to that is that sometimes you have to know what to skip. At 105 pages, I'm only through 1/10 of the book, and it's still the preliminary stuff. Sad, I know.
GEB - Godel, Escher, Bach
I think I've said enough about this one already. It's awesome, but there're parts that are hard to get through - like typographical number theory. I know I'm in math, but I still get dumbfounded by complex notations and too much logic =( Author tries his best to write for people that aren't as bright as he is, though, so it's managable.
The Story of Mankind
Not an awesome book, but it goes through all the basic historical stuff. Of course, at 500 pages, the amount of details included is essentially zero. In defense of me reading it... well, I think I really need an overview of everything if I actually want to get through life...
A Brief History of Time / The Universe in a Nutshell (Hawking)
It's interesting stuff... and arguably important, too. It's not a difficult read either. Why didn't I just finish reading it when I started? DOH!
Applied Probability (Lange)
This is a book my mom got me, because the author is quite well respected (at least) in her circle of statisticans. I tried going through it last year, but lacked the mathematical background. Now I'm a little bit better at it - I can understand the first 3 pages, at least. I'll probably have to go through "Probability Models" by Ross first - I know some stuff from P, but there're interesting stuff in Ross's book (the one recommended for P exam, I believe) that I haven't gotten to. Applied Probability is quite theoretical, though... so this one is going to be last that will be crossed off.
End of Entry
2 comments:
"This is something that I thought about for a while... and finding the answer to this delimma seemed to have become more urgent when I saw this talk on TED"
...where did this post go?
i accidentally posted it before it was ready -_-'
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