27. I want to be a superstar programmer, Bob. Which
books should I read?
There are several books which should be on the bookshelf
of any serious code monkey:
 |
Jeffrey Richter |
|
Advanced Windows |
|
This book starts where Petzolds ends. If you have to
get serious about threads, processes, DLLs or anything else down and dirty
in the Windows world, Richter will have covered it. There is very little
padding here. |
|
Steve McConnell |
|
Code Complete |
|
The best book written on software development
from a coders perspective..... ever. Worth buying for the chapter on optimization alone. |
|
Tom De Marco &
Timothy Lister |
|
Peopleware |
|
I *love* this book. It's about the social
aspects of programming, from furniture arrangement and methodologies to
team inter-relationships. Every tech manager should have their
eyelids stapled up and be forced to read it. Don't walk, RUN to the
bookstore and get a copy of the 2nd Edition. |
|
Donald A Norman |
|
The Psychology of Everyday Things |
|
The seminal work on how humans
interact with the world. Read this to learn about affordances... and then
figure out for yourself why the current Microsoft UI trinkets are so
sucky. |
|
Fred Brooks |
|
The Mythical Man Month |
|
Required reading for anybody who
aspires to team leadership or management (of course if you DO ever end up in management,
having read this will do you no good because you have your brains sucked out as a required
part of the induction process). |
|
Robert Sedgewick |
|
Algorithms |
|
More manageable than Knuths
multi-volume behemoth, and available in versions with examples in different computer
languages. Guess who bought the Pascal version by mistake? |
|
|
Steve Krug |
|
Don't Make Me Think |
|
An extremely readable work on web usability. If you're a programmer who's been asked
to do web work and you're clueless about site design (like me), start by reading this. He's
a bit dogmatic, but it's a short read anyway. It will be 2-3 hours well spent. |
If you're using MFC, you should take a look at Jeff Prosise's book - I believe the title is "Programming Windows with MFC". I
haven't read it myself, but others whose opinions I respect have recommended it regularly.
