Free Books & Long Reads

A guide to Git’s object database, refs and merge algorithm. Against "Git from the Inside Out" it is shorter and more command-oriented — the two complement each other.

An online book on writing fast code for modern hardware: cache hierarchy, SIMD, branch prediction. Where algorithm books stop at big-O, this measures wall-clock time on a real machine and explains why two solutions of equal complexity differ by tenfold.

A technical piece from a Turkish engineering blog. Unlike English engineering writing, in-depth technical content in the language is scarce — which makes it valuable as an example.

Mark Pilgrim’s free Python 3 book for programmers. Unlike from-scratch books it is a fast introduction for someone who already codes; it dates from around 2009, so newer features are missing.

An archive of articles and "refcards" on software development, DevOps and architecture. The refcards are what distinguish it from personal blogs: downloadable two-page summaries of a single subject.

A directory of free technology books and ebooks, organised by topic. Unlike individual book sites it gathers and links legally free books under topic headings — a directory, not a host.

A compilation of free programming books, courses and interactive tutorials in hundreds of languages, and one of GitHub’s most-starred repositories. Against similar lists it wins on scale and active maintenance, and it is split by language — Turkish included.

A long essay explaining Git from its data model rather than its commands, showing what each command changes inside .git. That is the difference from a command guide: once the model is clear the commands stop needing memorisation.

Free programming books compiled from the Stack Overflow Documentation archive, each example-heavy and split topic by topic.

Gwern Branwen's personal archive and digital garden of very long, heavily sourced essays on AI, psychology, statistics and internet history. Unlike blog posts, each essay is continuously revised, links are archived and pages are cross-linked with backlinks.

Al Sweigart’s free online Python books for beginners: games and automating everyday tasks. Unlike generic tutorials you end up with a working game or tool.

An online book that teaches Vim as a grammar — verb plus motion plus text object — rather than as key sequences to memorise. That is the break from cheat sheets: you learn to derive new combinations instead of recalling old ones.

A book teaching Vimscript for configuring Vim and writing plugins. Unlike Vim usage guides it is about programming the editor rather than using it — for going past .vimrc.

The archive of Knuth’s idea of writing code interwoven with prose. Unlike modern documentation tools it goes to the root — Jupyter notebooks and today’s arguments about explainable code trace back here.

The open repository of Andreas Antonopoulos’s book on how Bitcoin works technically. Unlike beginner summaries it goes from keys to transactions, scripts and the network, from a programmer’s point of view.

A reading list on software craftsmanship with a reason attached to each book. Unlike the free-book compilations it is selective: it proposes an order rather than a quantity.

A free book covering NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib and scikit-learn, published entirely as runnable Jupyter notebooks. Unlike the libraries’ own docs, it teaches the four together as one workflow.

A free, exercise-heavy Python book. Unlike explanation-first books it moves chapter by chapter through exercises.

A guide to preparing and delivering technical talks: structuring content, slide design, stage fright. Against general presentation advice it is specific to developer conferences — the risk of a live demo gets its own treatment.

A free beginner book that teaches Django by building one application. Unlike the official tutorial it is more guided; check which Django version it targets.

A book series in which the developers of open-source projects describe their own architecture. Against reading the source you learn which decisions were taken and why, and what went wrong — the rationale is never in the code.

A book covering GraphQL from both client and server side. Unlike the official spec it reaches into production practices — authentication, caching, pagination.

A free book on simulating natural systems in code — forces, particles, flocking, cellular automata — delivering the maths through interactive examples rather than a pile of formulas.

Allen Downey’s free book teaching programming from scratch with Python. Unlike syntax-first books it teaches how to think through a problem.