A beautifully written journey from Morse code and Braille to modern computers. Charles Petzold explains how computers work from the ground up, starting with simple electrical circuits and building to complex processors. This book makes the abstract concepts of computer science tangible and understandable.

A beautifully written journey that makes the abstract concepts of computer science tangible and understandable. Charles Petzold takes readers from Morse code and Braille to modern computers, explaining how computers work from the ground up. The book starts with simple electrical circuits and builds to complex processors, showing how binary numbers, logic gates, and memory work together to create the computers we use every day. Petzold's writing is clear and engaging, making complex topics accessible without dumbing them down. The book covers everything from how relays and switches work to how CPUs execute instructions, how memory stores data, and how operating systems manage resources. This book is essential reading for any developer who wants to understand the fundamental principles underlying the technology we work with every day. It's particularly valuable for developers who work with low-level systems, embedded programming, or performance-critical applications.

Beautifully written journey from Morse code to modern computers. Explains how computers work from the ground up, making abstract concepts accessible.

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths' exploration of computer science explained through everyday life. Surprisingly useful for developers who want to understand algorithms through real-world applications.

Algorithms to Live By is the book that made me see computer science everywhere. Christian and Griffiths explain algorithms through everyday decisions: when to stop looking for a parking space (optimal stopping), how to organize your closet (caching), when to explore vs. exploit (multi-armed bandits). The chapter on caching helped me understand why our database queries were slow, and the section on scheduling gave me insights into why some task queues work better than others. The book is accessible—you don't need a CS degree to understand it—but it's also useful for developers who want to see algorithms applied to real problems. My only critique is that some chapters feel like they're stretching to find everyday applications, but the best ones are genuinely insightful. I've recommended it to developers who want to understand algorithms without getting lost in mathematical notation, and it's helped them see the concepts in a new light. Not essential, but surprisingly useful.

Brian Christian's exploration of algorithms through everyday life. Learn computer science concepts through real-world applications and decision-making.

Algorithms to Live By: Computer Science of Decisions

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Visual, beginner-friendly tour through search, graphs, dynamic programming, and big-O that relies on comics-style illustrations instead of dense proofs.

I revisited Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition this year while mentoring a cohort of bootcamp graduates, and it remains the most approachable algorithms primer I’ve ever handed out. The refreshed chapters weave in modern examples—Dijkstra’s for delivery routing, bloom filters for caching, union-find for social graphs—while the doodled walkthroughs keep every step approachable. We paired the recursion and dynamic programming chapters with short coding katas, and even the students who fear math were sketching state tables and big-O trade-offs by the end of the week. Manning added new drill problems and QR-linked animations, so it’s easy to reinforce each concept with exercises. You won’t get the depth of CLRS or The Algorithm Design Manual, but as a gateway resource for engineers moving from CRUD apps to performance-aware code, it’s still unbeatable.

Grokking Algorithms Second Edition: Visual Learning

Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition

Hand-picked computer science tools and resources we actually use in production. Each item tested by developers, for developers.

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Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition