# Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran

3 Hacker News commenters recommended Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for showing how to build search engines, recommenders and classifiers in code. One commenter considers it obsolete.

## Why people recommend it

- Inspires building search, recommenders, classifiers (1 comments): "which inspired me with a range of things, like building search, recommenders, classifiers etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951723))

## What people warn about

- Called obsolete by a commenter (1 comments): "it is obsolete in his opinion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951929))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crafting-interpreters.md): 60 recommend
- [Clean Code by Robert C. Martin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clean-code.md): 31 recommend
- [The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pragmatic-programmer.md): 28 recommend
- [How to Design Programs by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/how-to-design-programs.md): 18 recommend
- [Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastering-emacs.md): 17 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596529325?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780596529321) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran", https://hackerapproved.com/p/programming-collective-intelligence/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).