Free books
19th June 2002
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).
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