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Understanding Computation

Tom Stuart

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cben
My recommendations are not exactly what you ask but what I suspect you'll enjoy if you're asking this. (1) "Understanding Computation" by Tom Stuart. Not "fundamental" as a deep textbook, but very approachable for programmers intro into a big chunk of CS, explaining deep ideas about languages using rigorous working clean code (in Ruby, no prior knowledge needed). I especially loved the first few chapters about what it means to define a programming languange and various kinds of formal semantics. (2) Designing Data-Intensive Applications, Martin Kleppmann. This gives you a phenomenally good survey of concepts and practice of distributed systems. This is more software engineering than pure CS, but in my view you can't approach the field of distributed systems without blending both anyway.…