D is for digital
what a well-informed person should know about computers and communications
by Brian W. Kernighan · first published 2011
58% recommend42% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Concrete, accessible survey of how computers and communications work, pitched at non-specialists and beginners. It serves as a gentler, more concrete companion to Code and a good starting point for new programmers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…high school won't be historians; most students of literature won't write great novels or screenplays; and so on. I think computing is like math and science generally, in this way. I use Kernighan's "D is for Digital" book in some of my classes. He wrote it for an introductory college course for non-majors, and it works for high school students too.
on “Real talk from real computer science teachers” ↗After Code, I recently discovered Brian Kernighan's D is for Digital, published in 2011, which gives a much more concrete description of how modern computing works.
on “Ask HN: Where can one learn about how computers work?” ↗…entry-level student in CS or CompEng. Our focus is on good writing rather than technical depth. Some that I've already identified from my own bookshelf and links: * Kernighan - "What's in a Computer?" (fm. D is for Digital) * Kidder - "Shorter Than a Season" (fm. The Soul of a New Machine) * ESR - "A Brief History of Hackerdom" * Seibel = "Interview with Don Knuth" (fm. Coders at Work) * RMS - "Freedom to Read" * PG…
on “Ask HN: Good Articles for CompEng Technical Communications Course?” ↗The Schemer's Guide was designed for paper and pen https://www.amazon.com/Schemers-Guide-Iain-Ferguson/dp/09628... D is for Digital is a good survey and has some Javascript programming info, Amazon has the second version draft already http://kernighan.com/
on “Ask HN: Learning to code, without a computer?” ↗D is for Digital: What a well-informed person should know about computers and communications, by Brian Kernighan.
on “Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?” ↗…bottom cleaning kennels and administering meds, and they can take vet tech exams from there to move up. I sent Saunder's guides since most vet tech exams use these. Another good book is Kernighan's book 'D is for Digital' (renamed in recent editions), it's an excellent book to teach inmates how technology works when they've been in for a long time.
on “The Big Business of Prisoner Care Packages” ↗Three good books that try to introduce computer science to non-specialists from various angles: * The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by Danny Hillis * D is for Digital: What a Well-Informed Person Should Know About Computers and Communications by Brian W. Kernighan (I think his Understanding the Digital World is probably a retitled newer edition of this book?) * Code:…
on “Ask HN: Recommendation for the mom of a near-college-aged “tech geared” student?” ↗I read both. D is for Digital takes up where Code leaves off. It's an easier read, Code gets harder near the end. I just starting learning programming in January, and both Code and D is for digital were indispensable for the context…
on “Brian Kernighan's new book: D is for Digital” ↗…prisons may not allow but I haven't had any problems yet "Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security" or get the older paperback version "D is for Digital". They give an intro to programming. Code by Charles Petzold, a really good intro book, may not get in either just because of the title.
on “Ask HN: Prisoners Not Allowed to Study Programming?” ↗…intentions), the potential for damage to the brand for the people we admire who built it (Kernighan is still alive, and it seems pretty evident that he is paying homage to this with the cover of his new book, D is for Digital), or any of the interesting moral questions behind the sentiment (for a humorous example of where this can go, see the episode "I'm Not That Guy" of How I Met Your Mother).
on “The C Conference” ↗I wrote to Kernighan a few years ago, when "D is for Digital" came out, to ask him, in effect, if troff had been made obsolete by TeX. At the time I had begun using it, and wondered if it was worth investing my time to learn. He answered that he still preferred…
on “Brian Kernighan on the Typesetting of “The Go Programming Language” Book” ↗…HTML and create some web pages, then cover word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. This course is required for graduation as is a second one-semester course. This uses Kernighan's book "D is for Digital" [ http://kernighan.com ] and covers what any well-informed person should know about computing: hardware, software, networking, and data. I enjoy using Linux as a platform for teaching computing for…
on “Linux should be a part of School Education” ↗An example of a university that is doing what you suggest is Princeton: see Brian Kernighan's course "computers in our world" and the accompanying book D is for Digital. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/
on “Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]” ↗…(as I can immediately recall) is Charles Petzold's [Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software][Code] (although I suspect, from the few excerpts of it I've seen, that Brian Kernighan's "D is for Digital" is good, too). [Code]: http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...
on “What Is Code?” ↗…graduation requirements. One was on operating systems and office software. At times these were Windows and Office; at others Linux and OpenOffice. The other was much like the material in Brian Kernighan's "D is for Digital", on basic concepts, history, and brief experience programming. We covered a little shell scripting, a little SQL, web pages with HTML and JavaScript. We had an elective programming class, but its enrollments…
on “What I Learned from Two Years of Teaching High School CS” ↗