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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Free books

I like free books (who doesn’t?), so when a story on Slashdot asked for book recommendations I started a thread asking for links to free technical books available online. Here’s a list compiled from the thread:

Dive Into Python
Mark Pilgrim’s excellent book on Python, aimed at experienced programmers who wish to learn Python rather than complete newcomers to programming.
Linux From Scratch
Guide to building your own linux distribution.
Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO
Calls itself a HOWTO but it’s pretty much a full book on the topic of secure programming.
Rute User’s Tutorial and Exposition
GNU/Linux systems administration guide.
Free as in Freedom
Book on RMS and the reasons behind GNU and the Open Source movement.
Thinking In... series
Bruce Eckel’s superb series of programming books that focus on basic programming principles while providing a thorough overview of the language. The series includes Python, Java, C++ and C#.
Mastering EJB
Comprehensive guide to Enterprise Java Beans.
EJB Design Patterns
Companion to the above, concentrating on design patterns that can be applied to EJB.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
From MIT. Concentrates on fundamental concepts of computing.
Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in ... series
Books describing data structures in object oriented languages, available for C++, Java and C#.
Numeric Recipes in ... series
Algorithm guides, available for C, Fortran 70 and Fortran 90.
Handbook of Applied Cryptography
Practical guide to modern cryptography.
The Art of Assembly Language Programming
Beginners guide to assembly with available versions covering Windows, Linux and DOS.
Object-Oriented System Development
In depth discussion of object-oriented approaches to developing software systems.
GNU Autoconf, Automake and Libtool
Guide to these essential tools for unix developers.
User Interface Design for Programmers
Joel Spolsky’s book on User Interface Design.

I have omitted several books that only provide partial tasters on their sites—see the Slashdot thread for a list that includes these. Two other useful lists of free books include the O’Reilly Open Books Project and Libros Recomendados On Line (in Spanish but links to English resources).

This is Free books by Simon Willison, posted on 19th June 2002.

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24 comments

  1. i want to ;earn java from basic.

    Faheem_Ijaz7@hotmail.com - 27th January 2004 16:54 - #

  2. I need a book about ASPX.net and a book about visual basic.net

    Moises Moran - 5th February 2004 16:12 - #

  3. i want to be the best in programming....THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIQUID METAL is my beloved programmer

    hossam - 14th July 2004 16:17 - #

  4. see

    walid - 28th July 2004 20:52 - #

  5. I want to learn the language which needs C language as a basic.

    ranjith - 20th November 2004 10:39 - #

  6. i want to learn about CDMA Basics and 1xEV-DO Architecture

    Marcia Pippin - 19th January 2005 12:12 - #

  7. I need to learn about CDMA technics anh Architecture.

    Nguyen Van Ba - 18th March 2005 07:01 - #

  8. Excellent list! The Python books are especially good -- and the Thinking In series. Nice one!

    Aaron Morse - 29th April 2005 20:02 - #

  9. I need book about Principle of CDMA

    mohmed - 7th May 2005 19:54 - #

  10. I want to learn about CDMA basics

    cdma - 30th May 2005 10:00 - #

  11. I need book about Principle of CDMA because I want to learn about CDMA

    spartha - 30th May 2005 10:05 - #

  12. I badly want to understand deeply the internal architecture CDMA, its signal encoding and decoding, signal spreading and despreading, handoff, and packet design, how call establishment and delivery is done, and each and everything related to CDMA technology. Pleeeeease.

    Kshitij - 13th June 2005 07:25 - #

  13. Here are a couple more links for you: Keep up the good work!

    Matthew - 4th July 2005 15:56 - #

  14. I recently joined a J2EE course and was on the lookout for a good J2EE book. I strumbled on your site while browsing the net and am really impressed by the pains you have taken to collect these links. Thank you very much. And keep up the good work. :)

    regards
    Ravi
    http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com

    Ravi - 19th August 2005 15:09 - #

  15. Another free book, one that I've found very helpful: -

    Essential XML Quick Reference

    Regards
    Mike

    Mike Dillamore - 25th August 2005 11:05 - #

  16. I want to learn ASP.NET from basics.

    Dhanasekaran - 12th November 2005 10:45 - #

  17. i need a book about CDMA and the solution of CDMA capacity

    Viet Khoa Nguyen - 15th November 2005 02:45 - #

  18. If you like free books, you should check out www.readitswapit.co.uk It's a free book swap shop, an online book exchange where you can swap all your old books for new ones.

    donna - 5th December 2005 00:13 - #

  19. Uhmm... weird, I don't remember how I got here. Excellent site!

    Luis Ortiz - 22nd December 2005 05:29 - #

  20. Thanks, Simon!

    Here's a link you and you visitors might enjoy:
    www.intelligentedu.com/blogs/Free_Computer_Books.p hp

    computer_teacher has a 29 page thread going with links to all kinds of free tech books, so the folks posting they need certain things just might find something they can use there.

    For more links to open access ebooks check out this new group at Google:
    http://groups.google.com/group/freebooksproject

    Ric Frye - 4th February 2006 11:23 - #

  21. More links your readers may be interested in. I have been collecting links to legally free programming ebooks. (no copyright infringement stuff here, to the best of my knowledge)

    http://www.programmingebooks.tk

    app - 7th February 2006 11:43 - #

  22. Good list, and very good to see "Dive In" at top of the list. I learnt Python faster than any other language. The clarity and elegance of Python was one reason, but "Dive In" was definitely another.

    Love all the "I want to learn ..." comments, and if ranjith finds out what "the language which needs C language as a basic" is, I'd like to know too !

    I want to learn English for programming, but there don't seem to be many books on that.

    Alan - 12th June 2006 15:20 - #

  23. i need books on machine learning, genetic programming and neural networks kinldy mail me links thanks alot

    zaheer ahmad - 24th June 2006 19:27 - #

  24. A good site to get free ebooks is http://freelibrary.awardspace.com/. Only links like the mentioned before.

    Jose - 5th July 2006 20:52 - #

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