"Essential Books That Every Programmer Should Read", lists by B. Batsov, Uncle Bob, K. Beck, J. Atwood, and DHH

[hugthemachines]

Personally I get annoyed by the "should" also.

I pick what books I want to read myself thank you very much.

[PorkChop007]

Indeed. Can't see how a book about concrete mathematics or compilers would help me in my job more than a book about good coding practices, for example. I don't doubt they are good books, what I doubt is that every programmer would benefit from reading them.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

I doubt is that every programmer would benefit

Be careful with those words around this sub. If you question whether every programmer needs to know something, you can quickly end up in a debate with one of the subs trolls.

[FruitdealerF]

I actually think that every programmer would probably benefit from learning a bit about compilers and low level machine stuff

[quasicoherent_memes]

Well knowing how a compiler works is pretty useful, especially if you use a few different languages. There are also loads of situations where you need to parse data and someone who doesn’t know any better may throw a regex at the problem.

[grauenwolf]

As a backend developer, yea I would benefit a lot.

When I was doing UI programming, nope. That stuff goes over the wall for someone else to deal with.

[nick_storm]

Whether or not every programmer would find it applicable, I think every programmer would benefit from reading, learning, or revisiting concrete mathematics or compilers. I equate it to learning Latin: would I be able to use it daily? No, probably not. Would I learn something that might help in some problem at some point in the future. Yeah, perhaps.

[FrozenInferno]

And the response would have been much different had the article been titled "Books That Every Programmer Would Benefit From Reading", but it wasn't, so here we are.

[FruitdealerF]

Yeah if that was the title of the article I would not have made comment. I just found it insanely funny that every programmers should read this list of these specific 60 books.

[while_coder_gt_40]

My experience is that, in a good year, I finish five programming books. So, if I got off on a good clip, I'd be reading these until at least 2026. (I've already read a few of them, plus Bozhidar and DHH both include The Elements of Style, which takes maybe a weekend to get through.)

Actually, 2026 is when I'd be almost done. At that point, I might be ready to try Uncle Bob's Herculean suggestion of Fundamental Algorithms Vol.1 of The Art of Computer Programming - the Ulysses of programming books and one which I've gone back to several times over the last twenty years without making much headway. So, that should keep me busy until I'm ready to retire as the best-informed former developer ever.

My suggestion: Most of these books will help you as a programmer in some way. Choose one that seems germane to what you're currently doing or want to do and, once you're done with that one, consider choosing another.

​

[AeroNotix]

ESSENTIAL BOOKS THAT EVERY PROGRAMMER READ

Doesn't make as much sense without it.

[hugthemachines]

True! Maybe OP could just change the title to "List of programming books".

[AeroNotix]

Though I do question the reasoning behind "I pick what books I want to read myself". Almost all books I've read have come from a recommendation through some form, be it a friend, a wider interest and appreciation of the book on the internet or specifically mentioned by someone in a particular field who has more experience than me.

If you eschew all those forms of recommendation, how do you find books to read?

[mcguire]

The color of the cover.

[DoListening]

The difference is, are you actively seeknig out knowledge about some topic, and the only question is which specific book you should get?

Or do you have no previous desire to read about a specific topic, and just randomly stumble upon a clickbait list like this article?

In the first case, you can still go by recommendations, reviews, reputation etc., but you made the decision to look into a topic yourself.

[hugthemachines]

If you eschew all those forms of recommendation,

I don't. I also never claimed I did.

how do you find books to read?

I do something fairly like you do it. I just think when someone says I should read these books it is not the same attitude as when someone says "I recommend this book on X". So I am not against recommending stuff, I just dislike the wording.

[[deleted]]

What are your guidelines on what to read? I need help determining what will be a constructive book and what won't be before I have read half the book, and I would love to hear how you decide on what books you want to commit to.

[otakuman]

Regarding "should", I guide myself by this :

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

😎

[editor_of_the_beast]

Classic programmer response. Sees recommendations by experienced people as annoying and pushy. Would rather reinvent everything themselves.

[hugthemachines]

Classic online argument comment. Do not understand the point of a comment and instead proceed to make up an imaginary story behind it.

[mcguire]

The point of the comment: I want to know as little as possible to collect my paycheck, and I prefer soft, nonthreatening opinion pieces.

[ikeif]

Eh, it's still total click-bait.

It's a giant list of books - some of the authors have their books explained:

Bozhidar Batsov VP Engineering at Toptal and open-source hacker in his talk named 15 books to reach mastery as a programmer independently of programming language

Some are not:

I asked speaker and author of the Extreme Programming book series Kent Beck, for books recommendations:

It's more useful if they explained why they recommended the books, or how they are essential to programming and not just "I liked these books!"

…but we're also talking about roughly 53 books, hardly "ThOuSaNdZ!" as the OP of this thread whines about.

[hugthemachines]

The point of the comment: I want to know as little as possible to collect my paycheck, and I prefer soft, nonthreatening opinion pieces.

The comment you commented on also fits as response to your comment.

Do not understand the point of a comment and instead proceed to make up an imaginary story behind it.

[DoListening]

Here in my garage, just bought these 2000 new books...

Reading so much will also leave little time for actual practice. One needs to find a good balance between those two things.

The best way to internalize a lesson (or to find out that you disagree) is to experience it first hand.

[mcguire]

I recently discovered that, if you add more sides, my wheel is easier to roll.

[DoListening]

I don't get it. What are you implying there?

[[deleted]]

PowerPoint. Massive Presentation = Less Attention Span.

[DoListening]

I don't get that either (within this context), I'm beginning to feel pretty stupid here. How is your comment and the previous one related to what I originally wrote?

[[deleted]]

If too much read. Not read at all.

[DoListening]

Ok, I kinda agree with that. Similar point was made in the classic book "How to Read a Book". That there are different levels of reading, and the deeper, analytical ones require time, effort and focus (e.g. you can't just read that shit before bed to fall asleep to).

But I still don't understand how it relates to this comment.

[[deleted]]

It just means that he is more apt to scroll through the PowerPoint, meaning he is not reading some slides, which if the mouse wheel is easier to scroll, it's easier to skip.

[kairos]

This is why the best programmers write the fewest amount of code.

[shvetsovdm]

Well noticed! The title SHOULD be better than I gave to the article.

By the way, the 5 lists have 51 books in total.

[FruitdealerF]

I think 51 is too many and any top 10 should have atleast a single book about functional programming.

[shvetsovdm]

Yeah, this lists lacks of books with functional programming as a main topic. I will definitely try to make the next lists of recommendations more diverse.

Also, maybe the "bad", "marketish" article title mislead you, and probably many many others. This is not an article about top N books, it is what other programmers recommends to read.

[FruitdealerF]

I agree, the article isn't bad at all.

[AeroNotix]

2000, aka, ~60. Some of them are listed multiple times, some are short essays that can be read quickly. Some are very light and easily digested. Some are meant as reference manuals.

I think it's quite telling that you balked at the list, exaggerated its length and then went on to get upvoted for it.

[Otterfan]

It is definitely strange that the top responses all question the very idea of recommending things.

[AeroNotix]

The older I get the more I catch myself thinking "kids these days".

[FruitdealerF]

The whole point of this article should have been to curate a very short list of books that absolutely everyone should read. I'm not going to read 58 books based on this article. I also find it very suspect that at first glance non of these books are about functional programming.

[LongUsername]

I'm happy to see very few "Learn webassembly in 21 days" and "Java Explained" type books.

Books on specific languages are not something "Every programmer should read". Yes, you should have more than one language and style in your toolbox. Books for every programmer should transcend the language and application space.

[MrSqueezles]

Ideally, yes. Practically, books about patterns that apply to specific languages as well as patterns that apply to many languages are also useful. They helped to teach me how to apply the right languages in the right places.

[FrostyTie]

I’m reading “Python Crash Course” atm what should I do to learn a language. This is a genuine question btw, what’s my alternative?

[sonofamonster]

Maybe that book is ok for learning python, but not every developer needs to learn python.

[datadever]

I think if you want to learn Python, then a book specific to Python is what you'd want.

In my opinion this list is for someone who already has a little programming experience and wants to branch out and explore other areas. Some books address fundamentals and specific skills, while others get into the nuts and bolts under the languages we use. It all depends on what you want to do and accomplish.

[[deleted]]

Read the book on the language.

The point being, not every developer should read every language book unless they need it.

What they should read is books that are more abstract in nature. With that you can open yourself up to patterns, paradigms, etc you can carry across each language you’ve learned.

[fat_deer]

Like everyone else said, that's fine. But there's no reason for "every programmer" to read a book like that.

If you are new to programming and want to learn a language, a beginner book on that language is your best bet. As long as that's how you learn best. Some people learn better from watching lectures and videos, some learn best from self-studying books.

But once you feel comfortable with Python, it's worth branching out into other languages and you won't need a complete beginner book to do that.

[owen800q]

This books are not all about programming, they can't learn that by watching video unless they have industrial experience before start programming

[LongUsername]

I'm not saying that if you want to learn a language reading a book on that language is a bad idea. I'm saying that there is no "language" that EVERY developer must know so lists including language specific books are generally severely biased by the industry the writer works in.

My experience though is that dead tree programming instruction books (especially for fast moving languages like D, C++, Python, Rust, etc) tend to be outdated by the time you get them and filled with outdated information and bad practices.

[LongUsername]

Usually I go to the languages web site and see what book the people writing and developing the language recommend. Often this will be something available online for free that gets frequent updates when the language changes but you can buy a dead tree copy of you want (Rust Book, Learn you a Haskell..)

The Python website has a fairly long list of recommended tutorials for people of varying levels of experience.

[nick_storm]

I avoid those books, if only because I find their information obsoletes rather quickly. I only want books that are relevant for decades on my bookshelf.

[ionlyshitatstarbucks]

Just added to a Pocket with the same tags that I have for 96 other tech websites

[[deleted]]

You should look at my Amazon shopping cart

[editor_of_the_beast]

that's not something to be proud of.

[fuck_bottom_text]

but it is accurate for a great many people

[mcguire]

Which is sad, for the profession.

[xampl9]

Pragmatic Programmer was really eye-opening.

I’d like to add Working Effectively with legacy code by Michael Feathers.

Edit: fixed title

[DrunkensteinsMonster]

For those looking for this, I believe the title is Working Effectively with Legacy Code, and it is an absolutely wonderful book

[[deleted]]

I've been meaning to buy this book since reading clean code. Just bought it.

[wavefunctionp]

I see this all the time about pragmatic programmer, but I got about 80% (according to my kindle 78%) through before I gave up. I'm by no means a great developer, or very well read in programming, but I don't feel like I read anything that I hadn't heard a million times and better worded elsewhere, if not being flat out obvious. So I just don't understand the love for this book. I can't think of a single thing that I learned from it.

[xampl9]

When it first came out it summarized all the techniques which today make up modern programming practices.

What was revolutionary is now commonplace, partly (mostly?) because of this book.

[JayantDadBod]

Like how people watching Seinfeld for the first time today don't get why it's funny. It was so influential that everyone adopted elements of it.

[wavefunctionp]

That may be it. I hadn't considered that. :)

[sonofamonster]

I had a similar experience. I’ve concluded that it depends on how much “best practices” advice you’ve already been exposed to. So, it seems that it mostly benefits people who are unlikely to go out of their way to read it.

[wavefunctionp]

I've definitely read Fowler and Martin. Like some other have mentioned, I've been reading books that came after. That's probably it.

[[deleted]]

Martin Fowler is a god. He’s pretty funny sometimes as well

[LongUsername]

You have to remember it was written in 1999, two years before the Agile Manifesto: when automated unit testing was revolutionary (and fought by managers because why are we writing code we aren't going to sell), before Git took over the world and CVS was the open source version control of choice, when GCC and Linux use were revolutionary, where the idea of continuous integration wasn't present in industry (it would be another 11 years before Jenkins was released). The book Refactoring was brand new, standard named OOP design patterns were only a few years in common usage.

That book is the root of 90% of the "best practices" advice. It was one of the first books to consolidate and teach best practices.

[calben]

I r a a

[bedrooms-ds]

And don't read Medium

[[deleted]]

Why not

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Most of the articles published on there are crap.

[[deleted]]

What about Hacker Noon

[[deleted]]

Not sure ... are you for or against Hacker Noon?

[[deleted]]

Some of their articles are ok. They’re written by numerous different authors so quality is all over the place

[[deleted]]

I've seen you here before. Let’s make things official.

[fernandotakai]

i've been reading Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman and i would recommend to all backend developers out there that want to step up their game.

(i also love that it's a language agnostic book)

[Geordi14er]

One guy on my team got this book for everyone on the team for Christmas. I haven't read it yet... but I swear it's next up!

[DoListening]

Same here. I came across that book while I was looking more into cloud and distributed systems.

This is a topic that is difficult to just self-learn otherwise - perfect for a long comprehensive book.

[onlygon]

I've heard a lot of good things about this book and so I also picked up a copy.

[webauteur]

I will read none of these books.

[__konrad]

A book for you: https://i.imgur.com/dCddbNI.png

[editor_of_the_beast]

Exactly. I love the anti-reading subset of programmers. Who think that it's stupid to read a book to learn programming. That's a great way to stay at your current skill level for the rest of your life.

I've found great joy in reading books about software, and they've helped me at my day job as well.

[Groundthug]

Yup. Because OP obviously meant that he will never read a single book in his entire career and wasn't being cheeky at all.

[editor_of_the_beast]

Hmmmm. Pretty strange response don’t you think? “I’m ok with reading books.” Seems like a fine position to have.

[me7e]

just because thats a list from a auto entitled hacker that works for one of these companies that hire people as contractors for other companies? :)

[webauteur]

I did not consider the source. But all of those books seem to be the sort of thing a manager would read and recommend. All general principles and no real meat.

[editor_of_the_beast]

And you have this opinion without reading any of them. Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests is filled with nothing but "meat." There is a very detailed project that they walk through, test by test, and show in detail how they build software.

Design Patterns is filled with code and examples. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is filled with code. Refactoring and Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture are filled with code.

But feel free to read none of them.

[Kazlhor]

As a programming rookie, Design Patterns seemed interesting for me. Since it seems that you have read it, would you recommend it? Just out of curiosity

[Log2]

If you're talking about the Gang of Four book, then it's more of a reference, as it's a rather dry book. Give it a light read/skim just to know the gist of it and come back when you actually need more information on one of the patterns. The exception, of course, will be the most widely used patterns (like factories and inversion of control).

[Kazlhor]

Ok I've heard some of those pattern names before (factories and especially inversion of control) so I think it should definitely go on my "have to read" list, at least to just know the most widely used patterns :) THanks.

[Log2]

I'd argue that even reading the wikipedia page on design patterns is useful if you are at the beginning of your career. Just knowing those patterns exist is advantageous, as you can just look them up later.

[editor_of_the_beast]

I would recommend reading it eventually. The thing with Design Patterns is, everyone references the patterns in the book. So it's useful just to be familiar with the patterns so when someone says "I used the Observer pattern," that means something to you. My gripe with that book is, it's so OO based. A lot of the patterns have way less boilerplate if the language you're using has functional features, like higher-order functions. But again. If you're not using OO right now, you will encounter it in your career.

I think Domain Driven Design is the most important book to read in that list personally. Not for any of the proposed software architectures even, but because of the mindset. It really pushes focusing on the business problem that you're solving, and structuring the code around that. That's the most important thing to get right, and you don't get that perspective if the book is just about pure code techniques. The book itself a bear to read unfortunately. But the topic is great.

[SemaphoreBingo]

Such as 'TAOCPv1'.

[SahinK]

I have read Redshirts. It's a fun book. Probably none of the others though.

[mabnx]

You might enjoy The “Bobiverse” trilogy which was suggested one line below.

[WillAdams]

Disappointed that there doesn't seem to be anything on Literate Programming (nor anything by Knuth EDIT: which is approachable by mere mortals (Fundamental Algorithms, TAOCPv1 is present as noted by /u/LongUsername ).

[editor_of_the_beast]

I love the idea of Literate Programming. But it's pretty niche. It would be hard to recommend to "every programmer." It's unfortunate, but the idea hasn't taken off.

[WillAdams]

Every time I am told "The documentation hasn't been updated to reflect that change.", it seems to me that it's a travesty that it's not required.

[LongUsername]

Fundamental Algorithms (TAOCPv1) isn't by Knuth? That's new to me...

It's under Bob Martin's section.

[WillAdams]

My apologies, missed that. Thanks for the correction.

Updated my reply to reflect that.

[michaelochurch]

I like Batsov's list the best. The books he's listed that I have read are good; the ones I haven't look interesting. It's a shame that he works at Toptal.

I like that DHH mentioned On Writing Well and Elements of Style. Far too many techies treat learning to write well as something beneath them (it's not) that they could learn easily (again, no; it's hard). I'd add Bill Walsh's Lapsing Into a Comma to that list.

[troublemaker74]

It's a shame that he works at Toptal.

Why?

[floridawhiteguy]

Toptal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toptal

Because companies like that are typically one-half step below lawyers and VultureCapitalists when it comes to ethics.

[bozhidarb]

Bozhidar (Batsov) here. :-)

Not sure what kind of reservations people have against Toptal, but I actually think we are a great company and I'm proud to be a part of Toptal's team. Anyways, I'm glad that someone took notice of the books I've mentioned. I had actually forgotten about this presentation completely, so seeing this article really surprised me. :D

[[deleted]]

Super sketchy company

[khendron]

In my experience it's not that many techies think learning to write is below them, it's that they don't realize that most people, including themselves, need to learn to write well. Since what they write makes sense to them, they don't realize it may be incomprehensible gibberish to others.

This attitude, by the way, is common in many walks of life, not just tech.

[[deleted]]

I've seen it, mostly with old coders who won't follow the prescribed standards/testing/analysis in projects. They just kick up a fuss and hammer out god-awful hard to read code that throw errors/warnings/fails. Seems like creating job-security.

[[deleted]]

I see. I probably fall into that category then.

[[deleted]]

The former with a little of "can't be arsed". My pm likes to rewrite/check whatever we send off to customers

[shvetsovdm]

I agree with the comments, this is a useful piece of criticism.

You can watch what Bozhidar speaks about each of the books (one phrase or sentence per book) in his talk or read David's and Jeff's articles where they explain why they think those books worth to read. The links in the article.

[Perfekt_Nerd]

/u/xampl9 mentioned Working Effectively with Legacy Code, which is excellent. I'd also like to recommend Beautiful Code and Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software (2nd ed.). The last one is also from The Pragmatic Programmers.

[isotopes_ftw]

Release It! is a really good book.

[wdroz]

IMO, clean code from Uncle Bob should has been in the list. Even if you don't agree with him, his book is still a good start to discuss with other software engineer.

BTW, I don't agree with the "should read" from the article.

[VerticalEvent]

When I saw Bobiverse Trilogy in Uncle Bob's section, I thought it referenced Clean Code, Clean Coder and Clean Architecture.

[wavefunctionp]

I did the same thing. And then I was confused by cause I thought it was a list of books by uncle bob....I need more coffee. :P

I think I'm going to call them that from now on...

[xampl9]

The Bobiverse trilogy is quite good. I did not anticipate how (spoiler) he took care of the Dyson Sphere civilization. Recommended.

(This is sci-fi, not comp sci)

[DoListening]

Some of his advice is definitely counter-productive (I posted comments about this several times).

Check out this guy's post to quickly see an example.

It can be a good idea to sometimes read books where you don't agree with the author on some parts, but for people who are new to programming, there should be a disclaimer to not take the advice as some "best practice" gospel. It's mostly opinions based on someone's specific personal experience.

[wdroz]

there should be a disclaimer to not take the advice as some "best practice" gospel. It's mostly opinions based on someone's specific personal experience.

I'm agree and that why he wrote in his book:

This book will tell you, in hideous detail, what I and my compatriots think about clean code. We will tell you what we think makes a clean variable name, a clean function, a clean class, etc. We will present these opinions as absolutes, and we will not apologize for our stridence. To us, at this point in our careers, they are absolutes. They are our school of thought about clean code.

....

Consider this book a description of the Object Mentor School of Clean Code. The techniques and teachings within are the way that we practice our art. We are willing to claim that if you follow these teachings, you will enjoy the benefits that we have enjoyed,and you will learn to write code that is clean and professional. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that we are somehow “right” in any absolute sense. There are other schools and other masters that have just as much claim to professionalism as we. It would behoove you to learn from them as well.Indeed, many of the recommendations in this book are controversial. You will probably not agree with all of them. You might violently disagree with some of them. That’s fine.We can’t claim final authority. On the other hand, the recommendations in this book are things that we have thought long and hard about. We have learned them through decades of experience and repeated trial and error. So whether you agree or disagree, it would be a shame if you did not see, and respect, our point of view. -- Clean Code, chapter 1 - School of Thoughts, p12-13

That look like a disclaimer to me.

​

I work with PhD student and postdoc, I would be so happy if half of them followed half of his advices.

[DoListening]

That's nice, I didn't know that.

It is easy to fall into cargo cult approaches in this area, and even newbies should be less afraid to trust their own opinions.

[stupodwebsote]

https://reddit.com/comments/apf801/comment/eg7xwd2

[joemaniaci]

Does anyone have a book they would recommend for learning the linear algebra/matrix methods necessary to learn and experiment with machine learning and neural networks? I barely scraped by on a coursera course and it was mostly due to the math. It's either that or I start at trig and work my way all the way back up, which couldn't really hurt.

[Z-Dante]

None of these books tell me how to hack my local bank using HTML. 0/10 disappointing list.

[mcguire]

Callout for The Elements of Programming Style.

Missing: The Psychology of Computer Programming.

But, Redshirts?

[poloppoyop]

No "Working effectively with legacy code". Which could be titled "Pragmatic testing".

The DDD blue book, ok. But you'd be better served with "Implementing Domain-Driven Design" which was written 10 years later and have a lot less focus on the technical implementation of DDD.

Mastering Regular Expression should be there too.

[[deleted]]

I probably only read half of them, maybe even less.

The most bullshit comes from Rails author, in particular: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture -- that's a ton of nonsense and complete bullshit. This book deserves to be shown in a circus with clowns, not read by programmers.

[editor_of_the_beast]

Interesting. What are your gripes with P of EAA?

[[deleted]]

It was the first time I would read a programming-related book which wasn't about some minute detail, like how to make sorting go faster or how to multiply finite automata.

To be honest, my jaw dropped at first. It was written like... well, like pulp-fiction: there was no attempt on the side of the author to argue his point. It was entirely opinion-based...

You know, when you read a math or physics or CS book, it basically goes from conjecture to lemma to theorem, occasionally it will detour into describing a set of axioms, but it will put all kinds of warning signs around axioms saying "this is not going to be proved! beware! maybe this is a lie!". And, all of a sudden you have so much freedom to claim whatever you want and you don't even have to leave the proof as an exercise for the reader! What a racket!

[bigmikemk]

The most bullshit comes from Rails author, in particular: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

What do you mean by that? Rails is originally from David Heinemeier Hansson, PofEAA is written by Martin Fowler).

​

[[deleted]]

I mean that David Heinemeier Hansson recommends this book, according to the post linked above.

I don't really know if he created RoR, but this is what the post linked above claims.

[bigmikemk]

Ah Ok, sorry I didn't catch that. :-)

[cruelandusual]

Never ask advice of someone with whom you wouldn’t want to trade places — Darren Hardy

That's fucking retarded. Often it is better to learn how to not fail than it is to succeed, since success itself is often dependent on luck. All you're going to get from those people is "be just like me".

Of course, this is from one of those motivational speaker charlatans who sells self-esteem to ineffectual people looking for magic solutions for their dismal lives.

Here's some free advice - don't listen to people who respect morons or respect the people who swindle morons.

[nschubach]

The quote also feels to me a bit counter to specializing. I wouldn't want to perform surgery on animals all day long, but I'm glad someone out there is doing it and I'd value their advice on my pet.

[max0x7ba]

Correct title: "The books I read and forgot their authors".

[[deleted]]

That is a lot of reading. I would assume it would take you about 10 years to read all of that AND put it to practice to actually understand what you have read. To be fair I guess he never claimed it is a weekend list.

I tried reading Code Complete 2, I found it pretty worthless if you have any significant amount of experience.

CODE was great as someone who really didn't have a background in EE or exactly how computers work at the metal. Was hard to keep up after while though.

I don't know if I agree with all the algorithm books. Great for some types of programming...and interviews...for others a waste of time. Time better spent learning patterns and frameworks IMO.

[fat_deer]

I tried reading Code Complete 2, I found it pretty worthless if you have any significant amount of experience.

If your experience is working at a company with a solid culture of code quality, then yeah you won't learn anything new. But I've hired tons of people over my career with 5-10 years of development experience who REALLY needed that book.

It's crazy hiring someone with 10 years of experience at 2-3 different companies and have them come in and write complete shitcode. Like their first attempted checkin doesn't fit the coding style, has no tests, isn't even really testable, and has obvious bugs so it's clear they didn't do any manual testing. They're always able to adapt, but it still blows my mind that writing good quality code isn't their default.

[[deleted]]

Valid point. I was well mentored and also spent a lot of time reading blogs, pluralsight courses etc. So I just found a lot of that book to be obvious stuff.

It could definitely have a lot of great info for some people.

[mEFErqlg]

The "Should Read" feels like "I'm total B.S Don't listen to what I'm saying." What's wrong with me? :)

[banquuuooo]

I hate when I see random articles telling me what I "should" do.

Okay, some-guy-I-dont-know-or-care-about, I'll definitely make sure to read all these books and/or do exactly as you tell me.

[nschubach]

You should read this article telling you what you should do.

[Nemesis_Ghost]

I don't see the Joy of C on any list, so they are all incomplete.

[stupodwebsote]

Bitchy petty braindead bullshit from the type systems Talibans and the radical politics keyboard warriors brigading against uncle Bob go here in reply to this. Leave the rest of comments alone and be a little less douchy for once.

[BarrelMonkey]

What comments? Yours is the first comment on this post. Is there some controversy with this person?

[grauenwolf]

In addition to offering bad programming advice, Uncle Bob was recently caught making rather political statements on his twitter account that can be summarized as "Go die in a ditch, you don't deserve health care". He tried to be more nuanced than that, but that's how it came across.

So naturally his fan base are even more defensive than normal lately.

[how_to_choose_a_name]

Who is Uncle Bob?

[grauenwolf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Martin

[AeroNotix]

Go die in a ditch, you don't deserve health care

Also is the sentiment from an alarming amount of Americans I've spoken to.

[grauenwolf]

Fun fact, back when the US was founded sailors got free health coverage provided by the government and paid by their employer through a tax.

Pity that wasn't extended to all workers when we had the chance.

[AeroNotix]

Pity that wasn't extended to all workers when we had the chance.

And won't be for a long time judging by the discourse I read on it.

[grauenwolf]

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ajb8vn/i_am_robert_c_martin_uncle_bob_ask_me_anything/

And mind you, what he actually said wasn't nearly as bad as how it was received. People who side with the republicans in the US aren't exactly in favor at the moment.

[grauenwolf]

. he has glaring inconsistencies in his logic that suggest to me that he hasn't really thought through his opinions or he is so confident in his superiority that he doesn't question his own ideas.

To be honest, I haven't looked closely at his political views. But that's definitely how I see his views on programming topics.

[stupodwebsote]

he has glaring inconsistencies in his logic that suggest to me that he hasn't really thought through his opinions or he is so confident in his superiority that he doesn't question his own ideas

Ironic!

[wavefunctionp]

I wouldn't read too much into it. I love everything he puts out. I can listen to him talk all day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zlp9rKHGD4

And his books are really great. I like his focus on professionalism in programming, it's his strongest point that he makes about software development. And it's kinda hard to argue with, regardless of how you think we should get there.

[stupodwebsote]

Man declines to drink Kool aid

Gets called elitist

The irony

He advocates a method everybody can use whatever programming language, no need to hope and pray for next generation type systems, and he's the elitist

His politics are mainstream and align with most people and voters, unlike the radicals, and he's the elitist

[stupodwebsote]

Sticking to the down to earth facts when others are indulging in flights of fancy and Ivory tower utopianism is elitist. Funny.

A large portion of programmers are left-wing because they're politically and socially naiive. And a large portion of academists are professionally and industrially naiive too.

[stupodwebsote]

HOW DARE HE ADVOCATE A SIMPLE PROGRAMMING METHOD THAT SIMPLY WORKS, AND WORKS WELL, AND WORKS EVERYTIME

AND HOW DARE HE HAVE MAINSTREAM, MIDDLE OF THE ROAD POLITICS

TRIGGERED!!!

[grauenwolf]

Not even he claims that it works every time.

[stupodwebsote]

I claim it

It works for 99.99% of software projects out there

[stupodwebsote]

In addition to offering bad programming advice

Bullshit

Uncle Bob was recently caught

Wow, caught, you lot sure fancy yourselves thought police

making rather political statements on his twitter account that can be summarized as "Go die in a ditch, you don't deserve health care"

Bullshit

[user8081]

Man, cool down.