More programming pearls
by Jon Louis Bentley · first published 1988
80% recommend20% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, witty essays on practical programming, algorithms and software design, drawn from Bentley's Communications of the ACM columns; readers praise the clear writing and find the insights useful for engineers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A second volume collecting Bentley's Communications of the ACM columns.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2010–2024Writing efficient programs
Jon Louis Bentley
Recommended by 9 · mentioned by 109 recommend · 10 mention9 recommend · 109 recommend
2010–2026Programming on Purpose
P. J. Plauger
Recommended by 7 · mentioned by 77 recommend · 7 mention7 recommend · 77 recommend
2010–2023Fractals Everywhere
Michael F. Barnsley
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 62 recommend · 6 mention2 recommend · 62 recommend
2015–2026How to keep your Volkswagen alive
Muir, John
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 85 recommend · 8 mention5 recommend · 85 recommend
2008–2021Network Algorithmics,
George Varghese
Recommended by 8 · mentioned by 98 recommend · 9 mention8 recommend · 98 recommend
2015–2025What is this thing called science?
A. F. Chalmers, Chalmers, Alan Chalmers, Alan F. Chalmers
Recommended by 6 · mentioned by 86 recommend · 8 mention6 recommend · 86 recommend
2010–2026Software tools in Pascal
Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger
Recommended by 9 · mentioned by 259 recommend · 25 mention9 recommend · 259 recommend
2007–2026Programming Pearls
Jon Bentley
Recommended by 158 · mentioned by 245158 recommend · 245 mention158 recommend · 245158 recommend
…exercises, and nearly done with chapter 2. I'm taking a break, though.) _Thinking Forth_, by Leo Brodie et al. _The Awk Programming Language_ by Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan. _Programming Pearls_ and _More Programming Pearls_ by Jon Bentley. I couldn't put _CTM_ (http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html) down, either. It took a while to get through, though - It's quite large. I tend to read two or three books in tandem and…
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗…resulting in huge saving of space) - those are some of his techniques / war stories that I remember off the top of my head. Really worth reading, IMO. He is also the author of Programming Pearls and More Programming Pearls - also pretty good books. I just looked up his Wikipedia page again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Bentley and saw these excerpts (among other stuff): Jon Louis Bentley (born February 20, 1953…
on “Ask HN: What are the 20% tips that will get my code to performance 80% faster?” ↗…http://i.imgur.com/FD2dx3L.jpg) and I just found the 1st editon of semaphores in my printed pdf stack (http://i.imgur.com/qe9hgHM.jpg). I worked through most of the problems. 3. Programming Pearls and More Programming Pearls - I just love the way Jon Bentley writes. I don't know what else to say. These two books really teach the basics of solving programming problems. It takes many years to master the basics in practice but…
on “My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One” ↗…Abelson and Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Aho and Weinberger and Kernighan, The AWK Programming Language Andrew Appel, Compiling With Continuations Jon Bentley, More Programming Pearls Jon Bentley, Programming Pearls Leo Brodie, Thinking FORTH W. H. Burge, Recursive Programming Techniques Carriero and Gelernter, How to Write Parallel Programs A. K. Dewdney, The New…
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗>Bentley gives the "simplest insertion sort" as follows Is that from one of his books (e.g. Programming Pearls, More Programming Pearls, Writing Efficient Programs), or from some paper he published? I've read parts of the first two books and most of the third book, and all are great. Shaker sort is an interesting variation of bubble…
on “Bubble Sort: An Archaeological Algorithmic Analysis” ↗Programming Pearls and More Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley contain short articles "in the realm of insight and creativity." These articles appeared during the 80s in Communications of the ACM, but I think they are still mostly relevant and inspiring…
on “Ask HN: Most interesting, mildly impractical, well-written books on software?” ↗…working out algorithms and pseudocode for common important programming problems. The K&R C book. What to say. The Unix Programming Environment, by Kernighan and Pike. Ditto. Programming Pearls, and More Programming Pearls, by Jon Bentley. Among many other things, some clever / advanced uses of awk. Writing Efficient Programs, also by Bentley. I had mentioned it on HN earlier, and someone replied saying they had used it…
on “Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?” ↗1. Programming Pearls & More Programming Pearls, Jon Bentley. 2. SICP and The Litle Schemer. 3. K&R 4. Find the Bug by Adam Barr (I read it after reading a Guy Steele recommendation for this one and it's awesome. Author is a cool hacker, writer…
on “Five Memorable Books About Programming” ↗_The Awk Programming Language_ is vastly better, IMHO, and half the size. Brian Kernighan co-wrote it. It's that good. The awk chapters in Bentley's _Programming Pearls_ and _More Programming Pearls_ and Peteris Krumins's Awk One-Liners series (http://www.catonmat.net/blog/awk-one-liners-explained-part-o...) are worth a read, as is the source for awk. (nawk, at least - haven't looked at gawk).
on “Awk by example, Part 1 --” ↗There's also a good chapter on self-documenting data formats in Jon Bentley's _More Programming Pearls_, and don't forget http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PowerOfPlainText .
on “Why I love text files” ↗I first read this in the 'Bumper-Sticker Computer Science' column/chapter of More Programming Pearls, Jon Bentley. Great aphorism, great book.
on “The Code You Don't Write” ↗…insights. Definitely books that I like to pick up again and again. I'd add those 2 to the list: (i) "Programming on Purpose: Essays on Software Design" by P.J. Plauger, and (ii) the two "Programming Pearls"/"More Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley.
on “Some books with crunchy code” ↗…computers? Yes, great point. I know of at least one person who seems to straddle both those worlds - Jon Bentley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Bentley_(computer_scientis... He wrote Programming Pearls, More Programming Pearls, and Writing Efficient Programs. I own copies of either two or all three of those, and have read good amounts of the first two, and pretty close to the whole of the third (some years ago), which is out…
on “Computer Science from the Bottom Up (2013)” ↗Yes, and the same goes for More Programming Pearls - all 3 by Bentley (for those who don't know).
on “Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?” ↗There is also a sequel, More Programming Pearls. I have both, and they are good. In one of them, Bentley shows some advanced uses of awk, involving its associative arrays, in a short awk program to do some sort of processing, and says that an equivalent…
on “Ask HN: Best value Comp. Sc. book for 100€?” ↗