Top Programming Books Recommended by Alipay Researcher Wang Yi
During the pandemic, Alipay researcher Wang Yi—creator of SQLFlow and ElasticDL—shares his curated list of three influential programming books, explaining how SICP teaches abstraction and composition, how The Art of Unix Programming illustrates Unix design principles, and how Paul Graham's essays offer timeless insights for developers.
Because of the COVID‑19 pandemic many people stayed at home, giving programmers time to study; Alipay researcher Wang Yi (initiator of the SQLFlow and ElasticDL projects) was invited to share his favorite programming books.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is the first recommendation, with an online version available at MIT Press . The book uses the Scheme dialect of Lisp to teach abstraction and composition, emphasizing how to express ideas in code rather than focusing on raw efficiency.
The second book, The Art of Unix Programming , can be read online at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ . It discusses Unix design wisdom such as loose coupling, modularity, and the Unix philosophy that each program should do one thing well, illustrating these concepts with examples like OLE/COM integration between Word and Excel.
The third recommendation is Paul Graham’s Essays , accessible via http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html . Notably, his essay “Hackers and Painters” and other writings explore language choice, the power of Lisp and Go’s coroutines/goroutines, and how small‑team, niche‑technology approaches can outperform larger, mainstream efforts.
Additionally, a brief notice mentions Ant Financial’s upcoming online live stream titled “共战‘疫情’，技术破局” (Feb 19‑26), inviting readers to scan a QR code or click “Read Original” to join the session.
AntTech
Technology is the core driver of Ant's future creation.
How this landed with the community
Was this worth your time?
0 Comments
Thoughtful readers leave field notes, pushback, and hard-won operational detail here.