Kent Beck TDD book is a thin book e really good.
Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
31–40 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#32The Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas (120 pages).
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#33Finally picked up Strunk and White after years of procrastination and so far it has been a tour-de-force consolidating/spelling out the knowledge I picked up along the way (ESL). I found mentally swapping out words about writing for words about programming to be fun.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#34A Philosophy of Software Design. Very well-written. At 190 pages, quite likely finish-able in a weekend. But if you get 70% of the way through it, that is still very valuable. It makes sense as an underlying set of principles that explain why you would use design patterns.
An absolute must have I agree, amazing book.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#35A Philosophy of Software Design. Very well-written. At 190 pages, quite likely finish-able in a weekend. But if you get 70% of the way through it, that is still very valuable. It makes sense as an underlying set of principles that explain why you would use design patterns.
I came into this thread hoping to find the suggestion near the top.
Beyond his credibility as the creator of Tcl, in the talk he gave at Google about the book [1] he describes the course he teaches that was the inspiration for the book. The course is to write a word processor with a team and extended it with features over the semester, swapping codebases between teams so occasionally you have to work with other's code. Essentially the largest possible code project you can fit in one semester. Along the way, Ousterhout will give a deep code review of the each project. I think it must be very insightful to see the same project implemented so many ways, and to see what works in terms of simplicity and extensibility.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#36For a beginning programmer, I'd say buy a copy of "Code Complete", then rip it into 5 parts. Read any one of the 5.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#37Finally picked up Strunk and White after years of procrastination and so far it has been a tour-de-force consolidating/spelling out the knowledge I picked up along the way (ESL). I found mentally swapping out words about writing for words about programming to be fun.
If you liked that, I heartily recommend "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" by Williams.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#38Shipping Greatness by Chris Vander Mey is a brilliant book that relates his experience at Google and Amazon and the culture of quality necessary to ship reliable products that will be used by millions. Well written and a great read.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#39Ullman, 'Elements of ML Programming'. It's where I learned functional programming back in the 1990's, and I still think it's one of the clearest expositions around. Yes, it's the same Ullman who wrote the dragon book.
Re: Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?
#40A Philosophy of Software Design. Very well-written. At 190 pages, quite likely finish-able in a weekend. But if you get 70% of the way through it, that is still very valuable. It makes sense as an underlying set of principles that explain why you would use design patterns.
I came here to recommend this one, very digestible and has had a significant impact on the quality of the software I write.