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(slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

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Softpanorama Classic Series

Programming Pearls by Jon Louis Bentley

See the introduction to the series for more information

Steve McConnell describes the book as "a celebration of design in the small''. I would call it "Introduction to Donald Knuth." Of cause this book cannot be compared to the Art of Computer Programming, but still it is a classic in light-weight category, as the best popular introduction to important ideas. Actually there are two books Programming Pearls and More programming Pearls. The first one has two editions (1985 and 1999), the second only one (1988).  The Lucent Website Programming Pearls  contains the complete text of Appendix 2, which is a funny quiz that tests your estimation ability. Please do not take it too seriously, but whether or not you think of yourself as a programmer, you can enjoy getting some obscure estimates of this quiz. Just try to get some secondary data that you already know and then you can logically estimate actual data from them. For example for Napoleon if you remember that his Russian campaign started in 1812 you can guess that Napoleon was at least 40 years old and get estimate 1872 :-).  There is no time limit and you can skip some US-specific questions if you have no data for them and stop as soon as you became tied. But generally it's a pretty interesting test of the logical abilities. 

The first edition: Programming Pearls ~ Usually ships in 24 hours

    Jon Louis Bentley / Paperback / Published 1985


    Amazon price: $20.95

Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1986. Also published by ACM in  December 1985
ISBN: 0201103311
The second edition: Programming Pearls, Second Edition (ACM Press)

    Jon Bentley / Paperback / Published 1999


    Amazon Price: $17.47
    Paperback - 256 pages 2nd edition (October 1, 1999)
    Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201657880 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.64 x 9.22 x 6.25
    Amazon.com Sales Rank: 1,460

 
More Programming Pearls : Confessions of a Coder
Jon Louis Bentley
Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1988.

Reviews:

Programming Pearls annotation from the ACM homepage. Here is some bibliography:

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Last modified: February 28, 2008