Book recommendations for Comp-Sci related material

Thanks for the input man.

Honestly, I think C++ is a great OOP language, but not the best language to start with, learning C++ at the start would be like learning how to assemble/disassemble and entire car.
Starting with Python would be better I think.

"Avoid anything with the word "modern" in it." - I really don't see any reasoning behind it.

"You don't need formal math for programming." - Not necessarily for programming itself, but makes some stuff easier to do, like coming up with a more efficient algorithm, etc.

"Programming is mostly learned by doing, not by reading." - I agree with you 100%, the provided material is just for reference.

Of course language wars are famous as being just opinions, but I still think it is important to express one's view. Java was developed in response to C++ which is an overcomplicated mess. Java was good and still is if you ignore the idiotic features recently added. I think the new language "Go" is an attempt to get C++ right because it combines the object-oriented and low-level paradigms. But I think one language should only have one paradigm to keep it clean, so I still think java is better.

I hate complexity. This is my view:

www.mikraite.org/Core-Programming-Principles-tp1237.html

I have been programming for a long time but modern code has become so disgusting and complicated that these days I just write my own tools. I have my own scripting language based on Lua here:

luan.luanhost.com/

It runs twice as fast as native Lua and is by far the simplest programming language around.

I recently got disgusted with the web server I was using, Jetty, so I wrote my own, intentionally violating every single modern programming practice I could think of. I am pleased with the result which is now in production running several sites. Here it is:

bitbucket.org/frschmidt/luan/src/tip/src/luan/webserver/

I have this sitting behind nginx in production, so the webserver can assume simple requests. But if you look at my code, you will see what reactionary programming looks like.

Here is one other example, a JSON parser:

bitbucket.org/frschmidt/luan/src/tip/src/luan/lib/json/JsonParser.java

Parsing theory is a big academic topic, but the result is a stupid complicated mess. Clean hand-coded recursive descent is best.

I think the first step to being a good programmer these days is to reject insane modern culture which encourages confused thinking. I follow the Old Testament. The Torah is a model of clean thinking like clean code. The Quran is also fairly simple, certainly much better than modern code/culture, but it could use some refactoring.

It's like a computer science course xD

When I first started programming, I used "The C Programming Language" by Dennis M. Ritchie and it was a useful resource, though I also learned a a lot from reading stuff on TutorialsPoint.com
Another book I recommend is "Introduction to Algorithms" by Thomas Cormen and is has helped me understand different algorithms which are useful for interview questions.
Just reading the books is not going to help much; you have to practice a lot on your own which will result in failures. However, the failures will teach you and you will become a better programmer.
There are other books out there that I have not mentioned so look out for them.