The C Programming Language

I don't know of any "how to write tech. books" kinds of books. I do have some recommendations of good examples of technical writing and right on top of the list is the C programming language closely followed by anything written by Brian Kernighan. The latters relaxed presentation with hard hitting examples drives home points in a way that no other book I've read does.

Godel, Escher, Bach SICP Art of Computer Programming C Programming Language Introduction to Algorithms Land of Lisp -- Extracted from my wishlist - http://flipkart.com/wishlist/dhavaltrivedi

I am also self-taught, although I dropped out of University two years into a CompSci/Engineering double major, so I will recommend some resources to you that helped me immensely. Each of these books has an associated MIT course with lecture video, notes, etc. available online. First is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs[1], which you can read online, and the associated course at MIT, which is 6.001[2] Second is the famous 'Dragon Book', Compilers: Principals, Techniques and Tools[3] and the associated course which is 6.035[4] Extras would be the Python book 'How to think like a Computer Scientist'[5]. MIT course 6.00[6] uses the book as a reference, and the courseware is again available online. Other than that - the usual suspects on learning C (K&R), UNIX (TAOUP[7]), the bash shell along with grep, sed, awk, more algorithms(CLRS[8]), functional programming and machine learning. Take your time, it takes years to build the relevant experience and knowledge and you are never done.…

From my C days, I second and third Harbison & Steele. I learned from K&R, but I learned better from H&S. From this list (can't say how current they are), http://www.c-faq.com/resources/sd19.html I liked: - K&R and H&S (if you have to choose, H&S) - The Standard C Library, P.J.Plauger. - C Traps and Pitfalls, Andrew Koenig.

Kernighan Ritchie: The C Programming Language. I had a copy lying near my unix lab computer. It must have been around 85 and I hated it back then (it was a very bad german translation). 4 weeks ago I grabbed an old copy from our library (this time the american 2nd edition) and now I appreciate how well this book is written. If you have some time, read it. Its a real pleasure!