Recommended Reading

Here's my recommended reading list, with computer science or computer engineer students in mind, as well as junior Software Developers.

Code Complete by Steve McConnell
A must read for all Junior programmers, Code Complete covers everything you need to get started in professional software development. My College education was very heavy on the theory and didn't cover much of the actual practice of Software development. This book helped bridge the gap and should be required reading for seniors in a Computer Science program.

Design Patterns by Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides
This is the ultimate book on software design. Its over 15 years old, but it is still packed full of useful information. You'll find that many of the common libraries that you come across use some of the patterns laid out in this book, and it is helpful to understand their convention. I've always found this book to be a little difficult to read because all of the code samples are in Smalltalk, but if you can learn enough
Smalltalk to understand the samples, this book should make sense to you.

Refactoring by Martin Fowler
If you've done maintenance programming of any kind, you'll have an appreciation for the principles and steps defined in Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. This book explains many common Refactorings, reasons why you might want to do them, and suggestions on how to perform Refactoring on large projects.

Refactoring to Patterns by Joshua Kerievsky
Ideally, you should read this book after reading Refactoring and Design Patterns, but I actually read Refactoring after this book. I was still able to understand this book, which is a huge achievement both for the author of this book, Joshua Kerievsky and the author of Refactoring, Martin Fowler, who came up with very simple and easily understood names for his common refactorings. With better examples then that provided in the original Design Patterns book, I was able to fully understand the power and beauty of the Design Patterns.

Web Technologies by Jeffrey C. Jackson
If your College experience is/was like mine, then you covered regarding Web development. With nearly everything on the web these days, understanding the technologies behind it is essential. This book covers many different Web Technologies, including HTTP request, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java Server Pages, and Web Services. This book serves as a good introductory or intermediate text book on the Web.

Mythical Man Month by Frederick Brooks
This is the quintessential book on project management. The lessons taught in this book are so important, that you may have already learned them from others or through other books, as this has been a very influential book. But just as you might choose to read Poe's The Raven despite having seen it parodied by dozens of cartoons and shows, so to is it important to read the original source for many ideas in project management and software development.

201 Principles of Software Development by Alan M. Davis
I've just picked up this book a few weeks ago. It is a very simple read. Each of the principles takes about just a few sentences to explain, and then the author provides a link to the original source of the principal. If you've run out of books to read on software development, this one just might point you in the direction of a few other great books.

Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg
All of the other books are pretty technical and can be difficult to read. Dreaming in Code reads like a story because it is one. It is the story of a software project named Chandler. The book follows the course of the project for the first couple years after its inception. The book outlines delay after delay, and gives an insite into the software development process and shows that even the smartest programmers may miss the mark.


I have a few other books I'm currently working on, but reviews of them will have to wait for a second installment at a latter date.

If you are looking for a good introductory book for a particular language for cheap, Barnes and Noble used to publish and carry a series of books on different languages, but they do not appear on their shelves. Since I live next to a Borders, I rarely find myself in a Barnes and Nobles so I haven't verified that they still carry these books.