frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: How do you read programming books?

2•3booda•4h ago
I was advised early in my career to never read a programming book (or tutorial) without typing up the code examples, and to always try to make the programs actually run. The idea being that this is the best way to truly internalize the material. I took the advice to heart.

When I do have time to do this, get a lot out of it. But it also means I end up reading far fewer programming books these days as other responsibilities in life have caught up with me

I am curious whether many other people here do the same. Do you type out every code example when reading programming books, or at least read them near a computer? Or do you just read them like any other piece of non-fiction and try to understand what the code is doing without running it?

Comments

bediger4000•3h ago
The last programming book I read was "The Go Programming Language". I did type quite a few of the exercises and do some experimenting by changing things in the examples.

I often type example code meant to illustrate a concept or technique in a different language, PHP when the example is in Perk, say, or use SQLite instead of MySQL. Thank s opposed to examples meant to illustrate a particular language's syntax or features. C doesn't have channels, bash doesn't have pointers.

AI buildout poses latest inflation threat

https://apnews.com/article/ai-inflation-federal-reserve-434f02e62a02f9b92e57995d9375df57
1•billybuckwheat•11s ago•1 comments

Show HN: GrindProof – accountability app that roasts your plan-vs-reality gap

https://www.grindproof.co/
1•Codefred•48s ago•0 comments

Apple Plans AirPods-Like Pairing for Meta's Glasses and Quest

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/13/apple-plans-airpods-like-pairing-for-meta/
1•nate•1m ago•0 comments

ARPA-H launches $160M effort to develop custom gene editing drugs

https://www.statnews.com/2026/07/09/arpa-h-160-million-custom-gene-editing-funding-rare-disease/
1•brandonb•2m ago•0 comments

I Found the Data Source for Insider Trading

https://insidertradealerts.com/
1•Chrisbabayans1•2m ago•1 comments

A decade of Cloudflare in production: 50 products rated

https://orangecloud.report/
3•CherryJimbo•6m ago•0 comments

What Is Class?

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2026/07/12/what-is-class/
2•g0xA52A2A•6m ago•0 comments

Personalized Gym Coach Charles

https://www.getcharles.pro/
2•klemenkocic123•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fleet Deck – see every Claude Code session on your machine in one board

https://github.com/lacion/fleet-deck
1•lacion•7m ago•0 comments

Prefect Acquires Dagster, Uniting the Two Leading Modern Orchestrators

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260713065285/en/Prefect-Acquires-Dagster-Uniting-the-Two...
1•bribroder•7m ago•0 comments

Hunting the Notepad++ Update Hijack

https://nebulock.io/blog/hunting-notepad-plus-plus-hijack-supply-chain-update
1•crashpn•8m ago•0 comments

Setting up Webmentions on my Static Site

https://www.alexhyett.com/newsletter/setting-up-webmentions-on-my-static-site/
1•ethanplant•9m ago•0 comments

FCC Approves Test of Space Mirror to Light Night Sky Despite Outcry

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/climate/fcc-space-mirror.html
2•bookofjoe•10m ago•2 comments

Standards that are code [MIT]: deterministic checks instead of LLM inference

https://verial.xyz/systems/standards-that-are-code
1•verial-lab•12m ago•0 comments

Do Not Trust, Continuously Verify

https://nochan.net/b/Internet-Crap/20260714-Do-Not-Trust--Continuously-Verify/
1•Bender•15m ago•0 comments

It's not AI slop you hate

https://writing.sidharthkakkar.com/p/its-not-ai-slop-you-hate
1•sikakkar•16m ago•1 comments

Using Subagents to Improve Claude Code Results: A Step-by-Step Guide

https://software.rajivprab.com/2026/07/13/using-subagents-to-improve-claude-code/
1•whack•16m ago•0 comments

When A.I. Is a Member of the Family

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/07/20/when-ai-is-a-member-of-the-family
1•amatheus•19m ago•0 comments

Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi Linux Driver Hardened Against Malicious WiFi Access Point

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Realtek-RTL8723BS-WiFi-Bad-APs
2•Bender•19m ago•0 comments

Lessons Learned from CISA's Recent GitHub Leak

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lessons-learned-from-cisas-recent-github-leak/
2•Bender•20m ago•0 comments

Muse Spark 1.1 Benchmark Results: 8 Intelligence Index points more than 1.0

https://artificialanalysis.ai/articles/muse-spark-1-1-everything-you-need-to-know
1•theanonymousone•24m ago•0 comments

Open-source AI battle arena, plug your coding agent in and it fights bots

https://arena.angel-serv.com/
2•ademczuk•25m ago•0 comments

Open source on-device AI apps (and counting), no cloud, works offline

https://github.com/zetic-ai/awesome-on-device-ai-apps
3•rishabh121108•26m ago•2 comments

Adaptive Catmull-Clark Subdivision with Compute Tessellation

https://filmicworlds.com/blog/adaptive-catmull-clark-subdivision-with-compute-tessellation/
2•ibobev•26m ago•0 comments

Optimizing CUDA Like a Human: Micro-Profiling Tools

https://hgpu.org/?p=30933
1•ibobev•27m ago•0 comments

Multi-Layer Reservoir Splatting for Temporal Reuse Under Disocclusion

https://graphics.cs.utah.edu/research/projects/multi-layer-restir/
1•ibobev•28m ago•0 comments

LambdaMART in Depth (2022)

https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2022/01/17/lambdamart-in-depth
2•softwaredoug•28m ago•0 comments

Social Comments on My Blog

https://mackuba.eu/2026/07/13/social-comments/
1•frizlab•30m ago•0 comments

How to Quantitatively Evaluate Prompt Quality in Claude Code and Codex

https://medium.com/@Koukyosyumei/how-to-quantitatively-evaluate-prompt-quality-in-claude-code-and...
1•syumei•30m ago•0 comments

Doomsday Clock

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
2•rognjen•34m ago•1 comments