It's not about technology for its own sake. It's about being able to implement your ideas.
I've read the classics--Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming--but I'd like to highlight some of the more esoteric books which affected my thinking.
I spent much of the 1980s writing 8-bit computer games (which you can read about if you like). Odd as it may seem in retrospect, considering the relative power of an 8-bit 6502 running at sub 2 MHz, I wasn't obsessed with optimizing for performance. If anything, I wanted the code to be small, a side effect of using a line-based editor and writing programs that someone would have to painstakingly type in from a magazine listing. Pages of DATA 0AFF6CA900004021... ugh.
