Great list of papers.

I've read five of of the seven papers on the list. The two I haven't read are Cerf and Kahn's, and Berner-Lee's.

Turing's paper on computability was particularly hard to follow, for me, because he used these gothic-font upper-chase characters to name all sorts of objects, and all those characters looked kinda the same to me! I had to use auxiliary materials to be able to make my way through the paper. Today, I would recommend reading it with Charles Petzold's easy-to-follow book on the paper: https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Com...

Cook's paper on NP-completeness was also hard to follow (again, for me). As with Turing's paper, I had to use auxiliary materials to make my way. Today, I would recommend reading instead an introductory book on computational complexity that works through Cook's proof.

Shannon's paper is a work of art, clearly articulated and beautifully written. It's just not casual reading, to put it mildly.

Brin and Page's paper, and Codd's paper, are not hard to follow, at least as I remember them, but understanding Brin and Page's work requires some knowledge of Linear Algebra.

Thank you for sharing this on HN.

A fascinating book on Turing and Church is “The Annotated Turing”. It’s a walk through of Turings paper with analysis and commentary.

It was written by Charles Petzold, who also wrote the immensity popular book “CODE”.

https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Com...

It sounds very basic, but I highly recommend 'The Annotated Turing'[0] to any beginner in Computer Science. It's a walk through Turing's original 36-page paper on Turing Machines, and requires only high school level math to understand. I picked it up early in my CS undergrad and it blew my mind. I suddenly understood what a computer was.

[0]https://www.amazon.ca/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

"The Annotated Turing" by Charles Petzold: https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Com...

My recommendation when anyone asks this.

1. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Inspired-Imitation/...

Definitive and detailed biography.

2. Alan M. Turing by Sara Turing http://www.amazon.com/Alan-M-Turing-Centenary-Edition/dp/110...

Deeply personal biography of her dead son.

3. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

Turing's famous 1936 explained in detail.

I read this for the first time in the excellent and surprisingly accessible The Annotated Turing[0], which I can highly recommend. If you're vaguely interested in things like proofs like these or about computability or just Turing's and others' contributions and approaches, the book approaches these things very well without presuming a deep pure mathematical background.

Seriously, read it.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

Another good book by Charles Petzold is The Annotated Turing.

http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...