Help a non-coder learn tech!

June 18, 2007 3:51 PM

What are some good books to introduce a technologically literate non-programmer to more advanced topics?

I don't know if these exist or if I'm better off with code books, but I'd like some intermediate books to learn more about higher level tech concepts, like databases. I don't have any illusions of becoming a great programmer, but I'm graduating college and would like to work in the tech industry on the business side. I understand that being more literate with code concepts would be very useful. I'm looking for explanations about what different languages do, databases, web 2.0 stuff like AJAX, how RSS works, web video principles, etc.

Thanks so much.

posted by names are hard to computers & internet (5 comments total)

These links are probably up your street. If you get proficient with the underlying principles, any technology to come is going to be easy to master.
posted by bonaldi at 3:57 PM on June 18, 2007

A lot of those aren't programming as much as protocol stuff, which is easier to learn. I'd probably start by reading the wikipedia pages on HTTP, XML, Flash, Javascript, and the broad types of languages - functional, procedural, object-oriented, concurrent should get you started. Also, read about assembly language, the basics of how compilers work, the basics of how an operating system works at a low level (with task scheduling, hardware abstraction, etc), and *especially* the difference between a compiled and runtime language.

Databases get a little bit tricky since you need to understand some of the underlying datastructures to understand them in depth, but you can get a good idea of how they work by reading about SQL, which is a fairly natural-language-like language. Reading about the differences between a relational database vs just tables will be useful too.

I don't have any book suggestions, but Wikipedia might cite some useful books. What you're looking for is so broad (except for maybe the database end, in which case I'd recommend a database design book) that I'd probably stick to some web searches for now.
posted by devilsbrigade at 4:18 PM on June 18, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I've been programming all my life, and I love Learning to Program by the Pragmatic Programmers. It's basically a modern rewriting of a beginner's programming book. It is stellar, and because you are learning Ruby, you'll be ready to jump into Rails development for the web with all it's MySQL-backed, AJAX-fronted goodness.
posted by AaRdVarK at 5:06 PM on June 18, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

When I worked as a programmer, Steve McConnell's Code Complete was popular.
posted by jayder at 9:26 PM on June 18, 2007

O'Reilly's Head First series are fun, quick reads that actually get their lessons across without droning.

I highly recommend Refactoring by Martin Fowler if you want to get/keep sanity in your code.
posted by trinity8-director at 11:40 PM on June 18, 2007