Appendix A: A Hacker’s Bookshelf

list on importance of library/references

If you can afford it, buy physical copies of reference books. Many studies have shown that people learn more when they’re actually holding a book in their hands.

If you can’t afford it, don’t worry – there are more than enough free materials on the internet. They’re just a few search engine queries away.

The Essentials

1. A Command Line Book (bash and Linux)

The command line is how hackers talk to operating systems. You access the OS’s command line through “terminal” software applications.

Linux is the most popular OS in the world – most servers hosting web content run Linux. If you’re already running a Linux variant - great. If you’re on Mac, also great! Linux and Mac both run the same type of command line software – bash.

Recommended Reference Book: The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction, 1st Edition No Starch Press https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Line-Complete-Introduction/dp/1593273894

2. A CSS & HTML Book

HTML is how you mark up content for browsers, and CSS is how you style that content. It is worth systematically reading through a book on it.

Recommended Reference Book: CSS: The Missing Manual, 4th Edition O’Reilly Media https://www.amazon.com/CSS-Missing-David-Sawyer-McFarland/dp/1491918055

3. Mozilla Developer Network

Mozilla is the crew that runs the Firefox browser. They do a ton of important open-source work, including creating https://developer.mozilla.org. This page is a gold mine and

including creating the gold standard of learning and documentation resources for web developers, from new to experienced.

Browse around: https://developer.mozilla.org/

And it’s all free. Thanks, Mozilla!

Websites For Research and Problem Solving

6. StackOverflow.com

7. Wikipedia.org

8. Google.com

Handy References

x. Pro Git by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub

Free version online: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

x. Eloquent JavaScript

3rd edition free online: https://eloquentjavascript.net/

Fun Reads

What is Code? by Paul Ford

Computer Science

Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python, 2nd Ed. by John V. Guttag – https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/introduction-computation-and-programming-using-python-second-edition – 3rd edition coming in March 2021!