10 Papers/Books You Should Read

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing.  Arguably he is the most important computer scientist ever, and the ACM A.M. Turing Centenary Celebration will be held June 15-16, 2012 in San Francisco to commemorate his birth.  This will be an amazing event.  Thirty four Turing Award winners will be attending.  The first Turing award was given for the year 1966 (46 years ago), so having 34 award winners in the same room is remarkable in its own right.  For those not in the field of computation, winning  the Turing Award is our industry's equivalent of winning a Nobel Prize. For those of you in the field, if you are are not desiring to attend this event, I just can't take you seriously.

In commemoration, I present my top 10 list of all time greatest papers/books written in the field of computation.  At least,the top 10 papers and books that I've read and that h ave influenced me.  I consider this all most required reading for anyone claiming to be in technology.  In no particular order of importance:

10. "Hint for Computer System Design",  Butler Lampson.

9. "The Mythical Man Month," Frederick P. Brooks.












8. "Bayesianism and Causality, or, Why I Am Only a Half-Bayesian," Judea Pearl.
 
(In 2012, Turing would have been 100 years old.  So, I guess this is really the 99th anniversary and arguably the centenary of his birth is in 2013.  I find this "off by one error" to be deliciously ironic.)