The Programmer's Brain
The Programmer's Brain by Felienne Hermansby Felienne Hermans
Shares rank 71 of 115 programming books by recommenders
Recommended for its summary of research on how programmers read, understand and write code, presented in a readable form.
Recommended for its summary of research on how programmers read, understand and write code, presented in a readable form.
3 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 3
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 3 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Summarizes research on programmer cognition
“This view is corroborated by the research summarized and presented in the programmer's brain by Felienne Hermans.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “The Unix Pipe Card Game” Used as a go-to reference
“The Programmers Brain book was my go to”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Android CLI: Build Android apps 3x faster using any agent”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Matthias Felleisen and Robert Bruce Findler and Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| The Programmer's Brainby Felienne HermansThis page | 3 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
2 of the 3 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The Programmers Brain book was my go to”
“This view is corroborated by the research summarized and presented in the programmer's brain by Felienne Hermans.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.