[saltcured]

I think you are interpreting "go read" as in go learn these by rote. He's not saying go memorize the details of these Unix and TCP books. He's saying go read them and absorb their gestalt approaches to decomposing complex systems so you can think about your own problems that way.

To this list, I would also suggest compiler construction or database systems as different topics exhibiting the same thing.

A more basic challenge for a scientific programmer might be absorbing the mindset of tool building rather than problem solving. It's a different mental perspective to think of your code as a product for other developers rather than as a means to producing a data artifact.