#13 in the ranking · technical · 1999
Code
Code, by Charles Petzold, published in 1999, is cited by 177 people in conversations on Hacker News, Stack Exchange and TabNews. It shows up in 19 of the 20 years, from 2008 to 2026, with the most mentions in 2022. People who cite it also cite Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, The C Programming Language and Clean Code.
Year by year
Peak: 28 mentions in 2022
Mentions per year: 2007: 0; 2008: 4; 2009: 3; 2010: 5; 2011: 14; 2012: 11; 2013: 4; 2014: 8; 2015: 11; 2016: 18; 2017: 17; 2018: 10; 2019: 15; 2020: 14; 2021: 18; 2022: 28; 2023: 10; 2024: 5; 2025: 6; 2026: 5.
Where it’s cited
What people write
From a text search; it doesn’t yet tell recommending apart from just mentioning.
Code by Charles Petzold for a month or so after seeing it recommended here over and over.
Hacker News · 2022 · in “Ask HN: Which book are you reading, since when?” · see comment ↗
There's another amazing instant classic book by Charles Petzold - "The Annotated Turing".
Hacker News · 2021 · in “Ask HN: Books Similar to Code by Charles Petzold?” · see comment ↗
I recommend Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold [1].
Hacker News · 2020 · in “How These Things Work – A book about CS from first principles (2016)” · see comment ↗
I highly recommend reading Charles Petzold's Code The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software and of course the Mythical Man Month by Frederick P.
Stack Exchange · 2011 · in “What are some things you have read that inspired and guided you as a programmer?” · by Nodey The Node Guy · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
Previously, Charlez Petzold had a totally remarkable book in Windows programming.
Stack Exchange · 2010 · in “Book to learn Winforms Controls” · by Pavel Radzivilovsky · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
I had written a little Windows code previously in the "Petzold style" before MFC was developed.
Stack Exchange · 2008 · in “What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?” · by TMarshall · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
| 12 | Code | Charles Petzold | 19 | 7,5 |
TabNews · 2026 · in “Os 15 livros mais recomendados para devs segundo 100 fontes.” · see comment ↗
O autor, Charles Petzold, é um dos pioneiros da computação e autor de vários livros famosos sobre computação.
TabNews · 2022 · in “[Livros] Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Charles Petzold)” · see comment ↗