I haven't looked to see if every question is covered by these, but here's some s...

vdm · on Oct 8, 2012

I believe that

  Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0136108040

is superior to the widely mandated

  Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach

for software engineers and programmers. The former has less hardcoded numbers than the latter and more timeless principles.

vokadav · on Oct 8, 2012

For what it's worth, Rosen's introductory text on discrete mathematics is pretty good as well. (This sort of math crops up all the time in formal CS, for those of you who might otherwise wonder wtf discrete has to do with anything.) http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?url=search-alias... (The study guide that is available to go with it is worth the money, imho.)

The Graham, Knuth, Patashnik book on concrete mathematics (a bit of a play on words for continuous and discrete) is a quality work as well but written to a considerably higher level that may or may not be pleasant to contend with depending on the reader's background. http://www.amazon.com/Concrete-Mathematics-Foundation-Comput...

modernerd · on Oct 8, 2012

Thank you. I'll get reading!

Thanks also for proposing the test and posting the papers online. It's hard to discover what level of knowledge is assumed of software developers if you've never worked in a large team and haven't entered the field via graduate or postgraduate study.

cperciva · on Oct 8, 2012

Yes, although I didn't get around to mentioning it in my introductory blog post, "self-taught" developers are part of why I'm doing this.

irahul · on Oct 8, 2012

> I haven't looked to see if every question is covered by these, but here's some standard textbooks I like:

The good thing is @cpervica has suggested standard textbooks, as opposed to suggesting obtuse texts unreachable to a beginner.

Algorithms:

I think a beginner might be confused by Sedgewick's terse coding style.

Computer Architecture and Operating Systems:

I haven't read either of the books. I would add http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=index&itemId=04... to the list. Like most of the OS books, you won't get a full picture of the OS from this book, but you will know the topics which will help you understand a real OS. Also most of the non-recent book won't cover flat memory model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_memory_model That is not to say knowing about segmentation is going to hurt you.

Mathematics:

I haven't read any of the books. From TOC, the cryptography and the statistics book looks good. I would recommend skipping cryptography maths for starters. If you are a beginner, an application level understanding of cryptography is what you need.

Networking and Systems:

Tanenbaums books loves history and theory. It's a nice book nevertheless. Once you are done with it, you should read Stevens' book on TCP/IP http://www.kohala.com/start/tcpipiv1.html

If you find time, you should read the second volume as well: http://www.kohala.com/start/tcpipiv2.html

For databases, I read this book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Database-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silber...

This is not a very interesting book, but it does cover the fundamentals very well. You will need a bit of will power to read it.