[jonahbenton]

Some mention of his works here, but not his name

Michael Kerrisk

Author of the Linux Programming Interface, innumerable man pages, and many other projects.

Absolutely, without question, the best longform technical writer. Reading his books, where he gets to exercise all of the skills in terms of sequencing, layering, explanation, repetition, etc is like receiving an architectural download from the universe.

Will also like others cite Knuth, whom I used to read just for relaxation that his orderly brain would induce in mine, and Stallman- the technical writings- who for all his flaws was and is an exceptionally gifted explainer.

[rotifer]

I'll second Michael Kerrisk. Here's what I had to say about "The Linux Programming Interface" in an earlier post [1]:

    Covers some of the history of the Linux/Unix API, describes it in detail, has plenty of examples, compares different APIs that do similar things so you can make an informed choice (e.g. System V vs. POSIX message queues).

    If any book in this list stands out for me, it's probably this one. It might be partly due to the surprise factor of how enjoyable and well-written a 1000+ page, near-reference book is.

From that same list [1] I'll also highlight Graham Hutton, whose writing I find particularly good and clear. He also has a number of YouTube videos on functional programming and Haskell.

Someone also mentioned Julia Evans [2]. She makes complex topics more approachable.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23453286

[2] https://www.jvns.ca/

[john-tells-all]

Seconded. I skimmed through the doorstop Linux Programming Interface book, and found it surprisingly easy to read and absorb the information. Very clearly written, with lots of examples and cross-references. Wonderful stuff!