Security Engineering - A guide to building dependable distributed systems <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html</a><p>It is hilarious and informative! Described in more detail here: <a href="https://hackernoon.com/how-to-become-a-hacker-e0530a355cad" rel="nofollow">https://hackernoon.com/how-to-become-a-hacker-e0530a355cad</a>
The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth is probably the closest to an actual bible for computer scientists - hardly anybody's read it all the way through, people quote bits of it out of context for their own ends and it mostly sits on shelves looking impressive while gathering dust.<p>The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks for tech management.<p>Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy for advertising/marketing industry.<p>Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the "Gang of Four" for OOP software engineering.
The C Programming Language -- Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.<p>Comprehensive, concise, and beautifully written.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language</a>)
The Art of electronics by Hill & Horowitz for electronics<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics</a>
Godel Escher Bach is fairly bible-ish if you ask me<p>Another set of books I consider to be "one" bible are Edward Tufte's (1) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, (2) Envisioning Information, (3) Visual Explanations and (4) Beautiful Evidence.
The Elements of Statistical Learning, by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman, for everything on Machine Learning and Statistics. Available for free online:
<a href="https://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/" rel="nofollow">https://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/</a>
The Toyota Way. Yet despite repackaging upon repackaging of ideas in the book, sagely picked up in the book itself as if repackaged being ineffective, many corporate environments can beat the drum but not walk the walk, especially in long-term people-related aspects.
In Security ( or more precisely in Cryptography ) - Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier<p><a href="https://www.schneier.com/books/applied_cryptography/" rel="nofollow">https://www.schneier.com/books/applied_cryptography/</a>
I will skip the tech stuff and go with a top hobby:<p>Advanced Marathoning, 2nd Edition - Pete Pfitzinger, Scott Douglas<p>It's heavier on the biology and human kinetics in a way that I don't need a bachelors in a hard science to understand and is quite well known now to serious runners. I read it every year as a motivator and to reinforce the importance of training smart.
When I studied cello performance in college, my professor would joke that the 40 David Popper etudes were my new bible. However, I think a copy of Bach's six cello suites is a better match.<p>In my work in math education, there are many possibilities, but I think Polya's "How to Solve It" is a strong contender.
<i>The Art of Computer Game Design</i> by Chris Crawford was the first book on the theory computer and video games. It's got quite a few ideas in there that are still relevant today.<p>But I don't think it's comprehensive or constantly referenced by those in the industry (it's almost forgotten about by modern designers, I bet). I think a closer fit to a 'bible of the field' would be <i>The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses</i> by Jesse Schell. Lots of good information about what to think about, and you can even buy a deck of tarot-sized cards that has a compiled list of all the questions the book invites you to raise when thinking about your game on them.<p>I'm still waiting for something similar that focuses more on board game design specifically, but a lot of the Book of Lenses can be applied to board games as well.
The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St...</a>
Not the Bible in its typical sense, but Crockfords "JavaScript: The Good Parts". It's like the Bible in that I seem to learn something new on every read through, and it's fairly quick to do so
For pianists, I think many would agree with Hans von Bülow when he called Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier the "The Old Testament" and Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas the "The New Testament".<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_B%C3%BClow#Quotations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_B%C3%BClow#Quotations</a>
Not exactly a field/industry, but in the Commodore 64 demoscene it would be the "VIC Article", which is a nickname for "The MOS 6567/6569 video controller (VIC-II)" by Christian Bauer:<p><a href="http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/c64/vic-ii.txt" rel="nofollow">http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/c64/vic-ii.txt</a>
<i>Ten Books of Architecture</i> which, for better or worse and perhaps suggestive of the level scientific basis for contemporary architectural practice, was written contemporaneously with many of the events later described in the Christian Bible...though from a practical standpoint of running a firm, <i>The Prince</i> might be more apropos.
For work:<p>Principles of Digital Audio, by Ken Pohlmann<p>For play:<p>Handbook of Model Rocketry, by G. Harry Stine.<p>(p.s. if anyone has any suggestions for the field of imaging, I'd love to hear them as I don't know of a good imaging "bible".)