The (new) turing omnibus
by A.K. Dewdney · first published 1993
91% recommend9% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Fun, bite-sized chapters give a broad overview of computer science topics without textbook depth. Suits self-taught programmers and curious non-programmers, and works as a reference to dip into.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…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 Turing Omnibus Edsger Dijkstra, A Discipline of Programming Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Computation Friedman and Felleisen, The Little Schemer Friedman and Wand and Haynes, Essentials of…
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗The book Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing doesn't read like a textbook to me, and it's quite interesting. http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmics-Spirit-Computing-David-Ha... The New Turing Omnibus http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Turing-Omnibus-Excursions/dp/0... is also good, as is Code by Charles Petzold. http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa... AFTER EDIT: While I thought…
on “Ask HN: Are there good books about computers that aren't textbooks?” ↗The New Turing Omnibus: https://www.amazon.com/New-Turing-Omnibus-Sixty-Six-Excursio... Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing: https://www.amazon.com/Algorithmics-Spirit-Computing-David-H...
on “Ask HN: Anything Like Carl Sagan's Cosmos for Computer Science?” ↗I haven't gotten through all of it, but I really like the New Turing Omnibus, by A.K. Dewdney. It's about computer science, not how to program, so it would be interesting to non-hackers, too. Even if you are familiar with all of its topics, it can serve as a reference and clarifying…
on “Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?” ↗Awesome. Another great resource in this mold is the book The New Turing Omnibus by Dewdney. "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Dijkstra
on “Computer Science Unplugged” ↗I recommend A. K. Dewdney's "The New Turing Omnibus". It is a series of articles and is very easy to dip into.
on “ASK HN: How to be a better programmer?” ↗If you really know how to program / software design / make it work, you can simply read "The New Turing Omnibus" (66 Excursions in Computer Science) from A.K. Dewdney and learn complexity/algorithms with "Introduction to Algorithms" from Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein. More important than _reading_ this last…
on “I'm graduating with a CS degree but I don't feel like I know how to program” ↗I'm not aware of a single book that covers all of those topics well. The New Turing Omnibus might be a good place to start for getting an overview of CS topics, but since you say that you want to become "much much better at the fundamentals", you might consider a serious study of Knuth's Art…
on “Whats a good book on the fundamentals of Computer Science” ↗Also, a worthy introduction to the field would be The New Turing Omnibus by A.K.Dewdney. In fact, I'd recommend this book first, for it gives self-taught programmers a taste of nearly everything in computer science (and thus equips them to know which branch they'd like to…
on “Must Read CS Books For Self Self-Taught Programmers” ↗This should be on this list http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-It-Modern-Heuristics/dp/3540... single best technical book I have ever read. Also, if you ever need to give a gift, http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Turing-Omnibus-Excursions/dp/0...
on “Bret Victor's favourite books” ↗'The New Turing Omnibus', along with 'the magic machine' and 'the armchair universe' by AK DEWDNEY really appealed to the young (Science fiction Reading) me. The current (older) me just had their mind blown by 'Self'- but there…
on “Six works of Computer Science-Fiction” ↗I'm a programmer without a computer science degree and I'm quite aware that CS is a bit of a blind spot for me so I've tried to read up to rectify this a little. I found The New Turing Omnibus[1] to give a really nice overview of a bunch of topics, some chapters were a lot harder to follow than others but I got a lot from it. Code by Charles Petzold[2] is a book I recommend to anyone who stays…
on “Ask HN: What's the best way to get a good computer science grounding?” ↗I would recommend "The New Turing Omnibus" book by A.K. Dewdney: http://amzn.to/2dGetic Jeff Atwood aka CodingHorror (of Stackoverflow and Discourse fame) recommended this book strongly in this post titled "Practicing the Fundamentals: The New…
on “Ask HN: Any recommendations on resources for learning one algorithm a day?” ↗…itself being a funny metaphor. As directly useful reading to get someone more acquainted with a broad discussion of algorithms and logic without textbook depth of individual topics, I'd recommend _The_New_Turing_Omnibus_ by Alexander Dewdney and _The_Advent_of_the_Algorithm_ by David Berlinski. Probably the latter and then the former, actually. I wouldn't call GEB a bad read. I think because of its high reputation people…
on “Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach” ↗The New Turing Omnibus: Sixty-Six Excursions in Computer Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805071660
on “Ask HN: What book to read to get a footing in CS theory?” ↗