1. Pragmatic Programmer
Many pearls of wisdom about the development process
2. The C Programming Language
Established the foundation for my early career
3. The Mythical Man-Month
Gave names to problems I'd experienced in my career.
4. Accelerate
Taught me the metrics and means of improving the software delivery process
5. Refactoring
Defined and named patterns for improving a codebase
There are others that could fit into a top 5 depending on what I'm working on at the time, (Gang of Four, Programming Pearls to name a couple).
Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
41–50 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#42In my case it was not a book, it was a magazine, MSX Club. When I was very young, without knowing any English, without internet or any kind of books, I learned to program by copying the Basic code that appeared in the magazine.
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#43[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#44* Getting Real, by 37signals:
Gave me confidence to side-step a lot of the bs I saw in software development practice
* The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks: Provided an argument against inexperienced managers who errantly assert that they need more developers to get projects done quicker; perhaps more importantly, it gives as a model for a programming team with a "chief programmer" to whom these managers need to report
* The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander: Taught me the original (perhaps better) concept of design patterns, which helped in talking to colleagues about the parts of software we build and reuse
* JavaScript: the Good Parts, Douglas Crockford: Led me to a solid understanding of how to make good use a crummy scripting language that was only really meant to glue DOM behavior to Java applets
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#451. Leaders Eat Last Deluxe: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
We gave this to every employee at the business, as it models the type of culture and leaders we wanted to grow. For me personally, it put down on paper what I had been trying to do for years. It was something I reread often to try to improve my manager/leadership skills. This type of thinking helped me become a better CEO (it wasn't instant).
2. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works
Great books on tactics and strategy; it helped me improve why we did things and created a much better approach to problems.
3. 4. Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want and The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
Totally changed how I approach building solutions and testing ideas. I learn how to do customer dev interviews and go from learning to testing what problems I am hearing and so on. I’ve flipped through each of them 50+ times as I construct the next interview or so on. I particularly like the Product Playbooks method to evaluate different problems and the value individuals put on them. They have been helpful as I’ve started to learn, and I’ve got a long way to go.
I wish I had these 10 years previous; it would have saved a lot of money.
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#46Focused on systems and design for backend devs:
1. High Performance Browser Networking
2. Designing Data-Intensive Applications
3. Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Services
4. Effective Python: 90 Specific Ways to Write Better Python
I wrote in a bit more detail here: https://notes.eatonphil.com/books-developers-should-read.htm....
Personally I would definitely not put Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Code or Philosophy of Software Design on the list (of required reading). I think they're good but not great. But whatever you enjoy reading is awesome! Everyone should read more. :)
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#47- The Pragmatic Programmer - helped me see some common pitfalls and figure out how to avoid them. Also gave me some good language for working with others.
- Coders at Work - hearing how some very experienced people thought about software was perspective altering for me in a good way.
- Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks about - Knuth has a depth to him and his thinking that freed me to have depth in my own thinking. While not strictly a software engineering book, the integration of all areas of life was and is inspiring.
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#48My background is mainly in BD (tech) and policy (US & international gov) and I've always found business books with the exception of How to Win Friends and Influence People to be incredibly lacking. Instead, some of the most influential books for me have been sci-fi or more in the future prediction category.
1) Stand on Zanzibar: Helped me understand one direction of a potential world unfolding and stands out as incredibly prescient
2) Sovereign Individual: Helped me understand emerging tech trends potential impact on how government/society is organized
3) The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Helped me better understand relationships, human needs, and dealing with impossible choices
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#49Focused on systems and design for backend devs: 1. High Performance Browser Networking 2. Designing Data-Intensive Applications 3. Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Services 4. Effective Python: 90 Specific Ways to Write Better Python I wrote in a bit more detail here: https://notes.eatonphil.com/books-developers-should-read.htm... . Personally I would definitely not put Pragmatic Programmer, C…
Have you seen the book "Web Scalability for Startup Engineers"? I think it's also good for system design. Definitely not as deep as DDIA, but I would say it's a decent prerequisite :)
Re: Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?
#50“Design Patterns” showed to me that there is a way to build software in a systematic way.
“Only the paranoid survive” taught me the need to constantly staying up to date.