Ask HN: Foundational Books

  • Friedman & Felleisen - The Little Schemer. The style doesn't work as well for me personally, but it's clearly very short and a popular way into the language and the way of thought.

  • Stroustrup - A Tour of C++. Getting a bit dated, but given how large the language has become over the decades, having a short synopsis can be quite valuable.

  • Rudin - Principles of Mathematical Analysis (aka "baby rudin"). Not as short as the others, but worth the read.

  • Emil Artin - Galois Theory. It has a super brief chapter on linear algebra and determinants that is extremely on-point.

  • Spivak - Calculus on manifolds. Not my personal favorite, but it's short and super classic.

  • Milnor - Topology from the differentiable viewpoint. Super-brief classic.

  • A. I. Khinchin - Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory

  • F. A. Ficken - The Simplex Method of Linear Programming

  • K & R - The C programming language

  • Emil Artin - The Gamma Function