Best value computer science book?

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. If you can only buy one book about Computer Science in your life, that's the one to get. It's not dirt cheap (even used), but it's an incredible value nonetheless:

https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Pro...

Here's a free algorithms book: https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/book/Algor...

It's got to be a good value!

If you're interested in implementing programming languages: Crafting Interpreters, by Robert Nystrom https://craftinginterpreters.com/

Most accessible compilers book out there.

Do you already have the standard undergraduate books?

* Introduction to Algorithms (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein)

* Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Aho, Lam, Sethi, Ullman)

Knuth is also great to have as a reference - I've only needed to consult it professionally two or three times, but it's saved a _lot_ of time when I have.

Really hard to make a recommendation without knowing what you know, where you’re at in your computer science education, what you’ve already read and liked, etc.

Hard to beat the scope of "The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles": https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-P... The website is here: https://www.nand2tetris.org/

My favorite is The Turtle Book "Computer Science" by Aho & Ullman. I also liked the books "Computer Algorithms" (by Baase et al), The Wizard Book, The Dragon Book, The Tiger Book (about compiler) and "The Comet Book" (about os)

Program = Proof, Samuel Mimram: https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Samuel.Mimram/teaching.... Also available as hardcopy in Amazon.

It would be nice if people could add why their suggestion is the best value computer science book, now it's just a bunch of suggestions without any context.

A few that I really like.

- Grokking Algorithms: Simple and to the point explanations of common algorithms with pictorial representations.

- Let Over Lambda: A Guide to making the most of macros in Common Lisp.

- Starting Forth: Never used or hear of Forth? No problem, this book teaches this very unique language in terms that are easy to grasp. Forth is perhaps my favorite way to program microcontrollers.

Used textbooks can get pretty cheap when you don't need the exact edition for the problem sets.

Textbooks I still have:

- Operating Systems, Tannenbaum

- MINIX, Tannenbaum

- Computer Networks, Tannenbaum

Not schoolbooks:

- UNIX & Linux System Administrator Handbook

- The Linux Programming Interface

- Time Management for System Administrators, Limoncelli

- The Practice of System and Network Management, Limocelli et al.

NonCS:

- Statistics, Freedman

- MLA Handbook

- Technical Communication, Markel

ThriftBooks is on Amazon:

ThriftBooks Atlanta storefront: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=merchant-items&me=A1QJ4UH6FW3UH1

ThriftBooks Chicago storefront: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=merchant-items&me=A365C2XG0O7B0H

Might also be possible to purchase a Visa gift card for a little extra, and then try the official Thriftbooks site:

https://www.thriftbooks.com

With the converted gift card, Humble Bundle (ebooks):

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Math and CS concepts rarely expire.

There's a few solid free books on algorithms, but I'm not aware of anything comparable to "Concepts, techniques, and models of computer programming" by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi available for free, (besides SICP and HtDP) so my advice is to check it out and then buy it.

I'm biased towards more practical books but here you go

- Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Kleppmann - not in your circle of interest necessarily but not in your circle of non-interest either.

- Introduction to the Design & Analysis of Algorithms by Levitin - not very popular but a great book. Interestingly, it groups algorithms around design techniques e.g. decrease-and-conquer, divide-and-conquer, greedy, DP.

- Algorithms by Sedgewick and Wayne - great algorithms book if your main programming language is Java, I keep coming back to it.

If you're not familiar w/ TeX, and if _The Art of Computer Programming_ seems tough sledding (but interesting), may I suggest:

https://www.amazon.com/Literate-Programming-Lecture-Notes-Do...

You could check out:

http://literateprogramming.com/

to see if it's a good fit. Hopefully it will get reprinted soon, but there are still copies available at fairly reasonable prices.

Sipser’s Introduction to the Theory of Computing is fantastic.

Symbolic Logic and The Game of Logic, by Lewis Carroll

Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces, by Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau

Is there a shortage of good, free CS material?

anything not available on http://libgen.rs

The most valuable book in terms of increased income to me is _Exploring Requirements_ by Gauss and Weinberg

Modern Operating Systems 4th Edition, Andrew Tanenbaum, ISBN 9780133591620

programming pearls is quite cheap i think