Favorite programming books?



  • My all-time favorite programming book is: "Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets"

    Good review of it here; here's the amazon link.

    An older book, but still a good read and pretty entertaining as well.  If you haven't read it yet, check it out.  Even though no one really programs in C much anymore these days I promise you will enjoy it.

    Any other favorites out there?  Things that prove that programming books don't have to be dry and boring but that can actually be entertaining and even funny sometimes (to geeks, anyway).



  • "The Pragmatic Programmer" is my all-time-favourite.
    I've just finished reading the German translation of "AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis", but this book is dry as a desert and about as funny as a funeral.



  • I know only 1 programming book, [i]Pogramming Languages, Concepts & Constructs -- Ravi Sethi[/i].


    The guy has a knack for not explaining.



  • @ammoQ said:

    "The Pragmatic Programmer" is my all-time-favourite.
    I've just finished reading the German translation of "AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis", but this book is dry as a desert and about as funny as a funeral.


    I just browsed some reviews of  TPP on amazon -- it sounds great,  I will definitely check it out.  Thanks, AmmoQ.



  • @ammoQ said:

    "The Pragmatic Programmer" is my all-time-favourite.
    I've just finished reading the German translation of "AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis", but this book is dry as a desert and about as funny as a funeral.

    I'd say The Pragmatic Programmer too, with Programming Pearls not far behind.



  • nobosy programs in C anymore?  are you serious?



  • @Jeff S said:

    Any other favorites out there?  Things that prove that programming books don't have to be dry and boring but that can actually be entertaining and even funny sometimes (to geeks, anyway).

    It's long out of print now, but "The Tao of Objects" by Gary Entsminger was the book that helped me get OO design.   Until then I was using C++ as C with bells & whistles, after reading it the world was filled with objects.  Took me a few years to get over that...  :)

    I've found a couple copies at used book stores and related websites, gave a copy to a guy I'm mentoring, kept one for my bookshelf.

    -cw



  • Does anyone know "Head First Design Patterns"? People on Amazon seem to love it...



  • @tster said:

    nobosy programs in C anymore?  are you serious?

    I never said nobody programs in C anymore.   though I probably could have worded it better, I will admit.



  • Some of my favorites.
    C++: How to Program by Dietel & Dietel
    Design Patterns in C# by Steven Metsker

    And for data warehouses, pretty much anything by Ralph Kimball.  The essentials are:
    The Data Warehouse Toolkit & The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit.

    And I still program in C occassionally (although not by choice).  I'm working with a third party app right now and I have two choices for custom programming, PERL or C/C++ via static libraries.  I guess it was too difficult to set the compiler flag to dynamic link library.

    Larry




  • We have discussed the "favourite books" topic a few months ago, near the end of this thread.
    This is what brazzy wrote:

    @brazzy said:

    @paddy said:
    Any good books that hit the nail on the head of what every
    "professional" programmer should know?




    My personal list of classics:

    • The Art of Computer Programming (Algorithms, data structures and stuff)
    • The Mythical Man-Month (Project management)
    • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (aka "Gang of Four Book")
    • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (again the name says it all)
    • Effective Java Programming Language Guide (More or less Java-specific best practices)




  • @ammoQ said:

    Does anyone know "Head First Design Patterns"? People on Amazon seem to love it...

    I read it, it's fairly well explained (clearer than the GoF, but it's also just as big while having half the patterns)

    I'd say it's a good introduction to design patterns, easy to read, gives you the most important patterns (or at least what the authors considered were the most important), but you won't use it as a reference book.




  • "Programming Perl" aka "The Camel"
    "Higher-Order Perl"
    "The C++ Programming Language"
    "Effective C++", "More Effective C++"
    "The Pragmatic Programmer"

    Lots of domain-specific books.  Stuff like Brooks' or "Code Complete" has only gotten read once, so it's not on my list.

    The GoF book puts me to sleep every time I pick it up.  I've gotten through about 1/3 of it, and selected parts of the rest, but...



  • The GoF book isn't really written to be read front-to-back, but it makes a spectacular reference text for picking sections out of or fishing through at random.



  • @Angstrom said:

    The GoF book isn't really written to be read front-to-back, but it makes a spectacular reference text for picking sections out of or fishing through at random.


    I'm currently reading it (the German translation) and it is IMO well written. Of course you need some experience to understand the importance of those patterns.



  • @Angstrom said:

    The GoF book isn't really written to be read front-to-back, but it makes a spectacular reference text for picking sections out of or fishing through at random.

    It's mostly written as a reference book (especially, as strange as it may seem, the listing of all the patterns) but I still found it very readable.



  • @ammoQ said:

    We have discussed the "favourite books" topic a few months ago, near the end of this thread.
    This is what brazzy wrote:
    @brazzy said:
    <font size="6">Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (again the name says it all)</font>


    Yes, definitely the best computer science book that I've read in a LOOOONG time.



  • @hank miller said:

    "Design Patterns" belongs on every bookself, but don't try to read it cover to cover. Just know the table of contents so you can read the important parts when you need them.

    My copy has all of the patterns listed inside the front cover, with a one- to two-sentence description and the page number...  So all you have to do is crack the cover.

    And what's up with the forum software stripping all of the newlines out of the quoted text?


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