A Seriously Amazing Book

"CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software", by Charles Petzold, is easily one of the most important and interesting books I've ever read.

On June 16, 2008, his newest book, "The Annotated Turing:
A Guided Tour through Alan Turing's History Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine" will be out on bookshelves. I can't wait to read that one, too.

Long live Logic.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• computer
• charles
• petzold
• software
• hardware
• microsoft
• program
• windows
• intel
• amd
• apple
• mac
• logic
• junkie
• book

[BenCecilMusic]

Big fan man. I was wondering when you have enough time to do a video, if you could do one on your favorite and most thought provoking books? Thanks!

[TheLogicJunkie]

@BenCecilMusic Okay, I can do that. I'll do another pretty soon...

[Crims0nBladez]

YES! You just articulated an issue that has been at the crux of my love hate relationship with programming/computers, and is one reason I haven't really pursued programming in any depth. How and why do the programming commands do what they do? You're absolutely right about how a lot of computer books don't enlighten properly the conceptual framework behind the user programs/procedures manipulation of the circuity.

I'm going to check the book out definitely, and hopefully start coding again.

[TheLogicJunkie]

What is needed for some people, is almost a firmware/compiler-level understanding of a computer. That's what I really need. And maybe that's a computer engineering thing...

[Entropy56]

The 3 basic characteristics of computer programming are: Sequence; Selection; Repetition.

[TheLogicJunkie]

@Entropy56 Nice!

[WJValente]

I haven't been on a crusade to understand my PC, but I have been on a crusade to understand the logical language of music... It has taken me YEARS AND YEARS to get anywhere with it, but I only now after maybe ten years of solid study can I write good songs.

[WJValente]

Read "The Best That Money Can't Buy" by Jacque Fresco.

[bunbunbunok]

yup once you have ideas, they fire you

[TheLogicJunkie]

Yes, you know, I have watched a couple of the MIT videos, and they're pretty good. The one exception I have to the MIT computer science curriculum is that it uses a purple foundational textbook with a picture of a wizard on the cover, and I've got a .pdf version of that same book, and I'm not nearly so hot about it. It centers around the Lisp language, and also the writing is very Buckley-esque to me...