More Programming Pearls: Confessions of a Coder: Confessions of a Coder

The original Programming Pearls is a fabulous look at algorithms, correctness and performance. This sequel is a little less thematically linked and a little more uneven, but is definitely worth reading by any programmer. If nothing else, you should buy it for the two best chapters: the discussion on profiling which is still cutting-edge, and the discussion on "little languages", which is ahead of its time and I think ahead of our time. There are also other smaller pearls to discover along the way. The apparent straightforwardness and simplicity of Jon Bentley's writing masks some very deep ideas.

I repurchased this book after my daughter gave my copy away to a friend in Computer Science.This is a great book for people who want to think about how to solve problems, and understand that how you solve a problem determines how fast it will be (or not).

As advertised

Programming Pearls is far superior to this one. However, I still consider this one as much better than the usual programming books (and anyway is pretty short).

I just love the way Jon Bentley writes. I don't know what else to say. These two books really teach the basics of solving programming problems. It takes many years to master the basics in practice but these books teach the basics well. I once wrote a blog post (http://www.catonmat.net/blog/three-beautiful-quicksorts/) about Jon Bentley's chapter in Beautiful Code that he based on a chapter on quick sort in Programming Pearls.Classic programming book. My favorite author, Jon Bentley, knows how to write clearly and enthusiastically about algorithms and computer science problems. This book is timeless and it teaches you how to reason about problems, break them apart, and efficiently implement the solutions. You'll pass the Google interview if you read and understand this book.This book (together with Programming Pearls) shares #3 in my all time Top 100 Favorite Programming, Computer and Science books:http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-100-books-part-one/.

Someone told me I was quoted in a book on programming when I used to program in C and other languages when I was in HS.Wasn't sure if this was me though or another Peter Halpern in programming in the NYC area in the mid-80s. And it definitely sounds like something I would have said.

The original "Programming Pearls" is, in my opinion, one of the greatest books on software ever written. It is a collection of the best, most timeless articles written during some of the most fascinating years in the history of computers.And then there's this book, which is composed of other articles from the same author. By definition they're not the best, because those were already used in another, better book. This one has the leftovers, with such timeless insights as "you should learn to use a word processor" (I imaging Word wasn't big back then) and "graphs are an effective way to display data" (Excel probably wasn't too popular at the time either).It's not that this book is bad per se, it's just a long, sad fall from the heights of the first one.

One of the books I recommend for anyone who really wants to be a programmer.

Put this on your desk at work and people will immediately fear your programming skills.

A must read for the ones who enjoyed the first part.