HACKER Q&A
📣 tndl

Books like AOSA's 500 Lines or Less?


I'm referring to this work specifically: https://www.aosabook.org/en/500L/introduction.html. In general, what other programming books are there that focus on small, mostly self-contained yet interesting projects, and also go into more detail than the average 'X by Example' or 'X Cookbook' books?


  👤 jonjacky Accepted Answer ✓
A classic example would be SICP, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Abelson and Sussman. It is often discussed here.

It does present a series of case studies that (I recall) are around 500 lines, but it's not so easy to count because the code is interleaved with explanation.

Although the code in each study is mostly self contained, the presentation is not -- the later studies depend on ideas and techniques introduced in the earlier ones, so it works best of you go through the book from beginning to end.

The code is very bare bones - it's all in the Scheme language, with no user interface except the Scheme REPL.