Doing a small personal research here. How many of you actually read books on software development (I don't mean buying and collecting them :P)?
ALSO, I've a train in 3h as well and I would love to start reading sth nice. So recommendations are welcome :D
We can't do pools here on dev.to, please pick one of:
- I've read 5 or more books in the last year.
- I've read between 3 to 4 books in the last year.
- I have read 2 or less books in the last year.
- I didn't read any book in the last year.
Top comments (36)
By the way, nice topic!
So this one is really different (not about development, but it's a good choice)
Read this one, really makes you think about life and not only. it changed how I perceive some things. Also recommend this one!
Surely you have also read “The Courage to Be Happy”? It looks interesting too...
Wasn't aware about this one. Did you read it? From what I see its also using Adler's psychology, so it might be nice.
Not yet, but I'll read it!
Currently reading this and so far it's amazing
Yes, really cool and interesting the way we think about life, right?
Well, I'm in camp #4... at least when it comes to programming books. 😅
That said, I wanna give a shout out to @integerman who I know recently published a book in the past year for all those C# devs out there.
Refactoring with C#
Also, I'm a Community Manager at DEV and seeing your post reminds me that I should advocate for us to add polling abilities. We've discussed it previously but haven't yet been able to move on that functionality. I'll remind the team!
Thanks @michaeltharrington! I had a blast writing it and it's great to write in public.
If my book interest you, it's 10% off for the next week on Amazon, but if you like digital it's also featured in its first Humble Bundle at the moment and that's far more affordable than purchasing the book alone.
I like to think that I am a pretty good reader but don't read many software dev books!
This year I read a few that are related to general career stuff + one HTML book for a course I was in!
Okay I take it back I think this is a pretty impressive list.
I will start, for me its nr.2 and The Pragmatic Programmer, really like this one 🚀 Cheers!
SQL Performance Tuning, by Peter Gulutzan & Trudy Pelzer
These guys know everything I learned the hard way during my 20+ years of optimizing SQL - and gave me a lot more! This book finally tells you why your queries are slow and how you can make it easier for the server to find out & return what you ask for. Just put it on the shelf! You'll find yourself reaching for it every now and then, and it's gonna save you days of headache.
1) here. But this year I decided to change my approach from reading just for the sake of reading and keeping a list of read books (just in case learning) to reading for the sake of answering questions or facing a challenge (just in time learning)
Here's my to-read list from last year:
The Programmer's Brain
Your Code as a Crime Scene (that title man!)
Designing Data Intensive Applications
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Only heard about Designing Data Intensive Applications. All added to my list! :D Damn so many good recommendations came out from this short post :P
Number two, but then I am a technical reviewer for O'Reilly so not really fair :)
Recommendations:
I try to be framework agnostic, looking for some general knowledge. All of your books fit this criteria. Thanks!
I have a copy of "Database Design for Mere Mortals", by Michael J. Hernandez - I am using for reference.
Then, I also have a copy of "The Goodbye Cat", by Hiro Arikawa. This might not be a bad choice for reading while travelling by train.
I am also referring "Understanding Exposure", by Bryan Peterson. This book is about photography and its basic concepts - mostly for learning.
Non-Designer's Design Book
This one is interesting and its sth I actually need. Thanks @lovestaco!
1.
My favourite book on technology is The Art of Game Design - it makes you look at everything differently in my experience, not only games but interfaces too.
I've just finished the following one which was an excellent one :
The link to goodreads doesn't work, here is a link to their page if someone is interested to learn more about it -> link
Also, the download link
Some of the best books that I would personally recommend are:
1-> Deep work (teaches you about how to work at an elite level and doing work hard to replicate )
2-> atomic habits(everyone should read this once in their life, teaches you how to build good habits and how to break bad habits by scientifically proven methods)
3-> zero to one (Book by a member of PayPal mafia i.e Peter Theil in which he teaches you about how to build profitable , scalable and sustainable startups)
Hope you find this useful, Happy reading
I agree zero to one and atomic habits are dope. I didn't read Deep work yet, but I've put it on the list :P
The Art of Thinking Clearly
Hehe, I need that XD
Nice topic, BTW!
In the last year, I read 12 books (it was my year challenge). In case, some good books related to programming that I REALLY recommend to anyone are:
Effortless by Greg McKeown isn't a software book, but it's helped me a lot in the way that I think about software and writing clean code.
When it comes to books that are strictly in the realm of coding, The Pragmatic Programmer is the one I wish I had at the beginning of my career. I know this one tends to make everyone's list, but there's a good reason for that 😄