Surprised SICP isn't in there. Also surprised to see the Code book is ranked so high, I personally didn't get much out of it though it's probably a great introductory book to people who are new to the field.
On a related note, my favorite book this year was "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann. It's a great overview of modern database systems with a good balance between theory and practice.
I'm sure people are more likely to link to the actual SICP page [1] rather than the Amazon page, especially as it's free on the website. If the discussion was in the context of buying the book, I would personally still link the MIT Press page [2], rather than the Amazon page.
Sicp isn't in there because it's almost a common noun on this forum by now. People don't link to the amazon page for it, just like they don't link to the bible :)
Hmmm, and I cite books a lot, but I often link to their Wikipedia page, since good ones can give the reader a better idea if one is worth reading, and they include ISBNs so it's really easy to find the exact book on Amazon (just search using the ISBN excluding the dashes).
With this alternate list having more books listed, it gives me (totally unscientifically) the sense that it represents the general style or ethos of Hacker News little better
"A new vision is sweeping through ecological science: The dense web of dependencies that makes up an ecosystem has gained an added dimension-the dimension of time. Every field, forest, and park is full of living organisms adapted for relationships with creatures that are now extinct. In a vivid narrative, Connie Barlow shows how the idea of "missing partners" in nature evolved from isolated, curious examples into an idea that is transforming how ecologists understand the entire flora and fauna of the Americas. This fascinating book will enrich the experience of any amateur naturalist, as well as teach us that the ripples of biodiversity loss around us are just the leading edge of what may well become perilous cascades of extinction."
"Links posted after Oct 2015" could justify more links on search vs the static dataset, not less.
The additional fields may be the answer, but my question stands: is that the reason in this particular case? Which fields besides comment text could produce this result?
I am not. I think CC is a dated book and should become obsolete.
It propagated a couple of myths without solid evidence that should be discarded from the software culture (e.g.: 10x productivity of good programmers, the cone of uncertainty).
Also it advocates an approach that, although valid for some areas (NASA labs, embedded systems), is not valid for a lot of the software culture (web development, startups).
"Pragmatic Programmer" and "Clean Code" are much better readings, IMHO.
Like SICP, the text of the book is online (http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/ if you didn't already know), so people more likely link to that than to Amazon.
Well, you didn't actually link to it ;) Seriously though, that is a shortcoming of the study. If a member mentions it without the link, it does not count.
You can create a candidate list of titles for those books that do get linked then check for those titles in the body of each comment - not too computationally expensive and embarrassingly parallel.
I hope it's clear that I was not saying that I could have done better. It's a great example of low-hanging fruit. Thank you, Ramiro, for doing this and sharing it with us all.
No I'd have bought many books that I have never gotten around to reading, sometimes they were bought on a whim.
Other times I'd start a book and then start another and leave the first one.
On a related note, my favorite book this year was "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann. It's a great overview of modern database systems with a good balance between theory and practice.