My Favorite Programming Resources

Last Updated: 2026-03-17

My personal favorites collected over the years. Most of the topics revolve around general computing, "low-level" or graphics programming, and game development; but not only. You might also want to take a look at build-your-own-x.

General Computing

• From NAND to Tetris (Shimon Schocken & Noam Nisan)
• The Pattern on the Stone (W. Daniel Hillis)
• Build a 6502 Computer (Ben Eater)
• Handmade Hero (Youtube Playlist) (Casey Muratori)
• Computer, Enhance! (Casey Muratori)
• Write Your Own Virtual Machine (Justin Meiners & Ryan Pendleton)

C

• 21st Century C (Ben Klemens): The only C book I found helpful if you already know programming.
• nullprogram.com (Chris Wellons):
  • My favorite C compiler flags during development
  • My review of the C standard library in practice

Memory Management

• Memory Allocation (Sam Rose)
• Memory Allocation Strategies (Ginger Bill)
• A Fixed Block Memory Allocator in C (David Lafreniere)

Graphics Programming

• How OpenGL works: software rendering in 500 lines of code (Dmitry V. Sokolov)
• Understandable RayTracing in 256 lines of bare C++ (Dmitry V. Sokolov)
• Ray Tracing in One Weekend (Peter Shirley)
• 486 lines of C++: old-school FPS in a weekend (Dmitry V. Sokolov)
• KABOOM! in 180 lines of bare C++ (Dmitry V. Sokolov)
• The Book of Shaders (Patricio Gonzalez Vivo & Jen Lowe)
• SDL2 common mistakes and how to avoid them (Chris Wellons)