Books every developer should read

These are a bit specific. I feel as though they might, in fact, have been the last 4 books the author has happened to read.

Anyhow, I expect we'll get the usual round up here. Code Complete, of course; plus a smattering of rebels who think it was boring or irrelevant. The Pragmatic Programmer will receive universal praise, especially from those who didn't take the time to read Code Complete from cover to cover.

Some of the debate will be about whether Code Complete is "better" than Clean Code or not. A silly argument, they are complementary (though, really, is this even a debate worth having? Code Complete is clearly the better book).

Let's see, what else?

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs will get mentioned, which will spawn a fertile subthread arguing about whether computer science books really belong on a list for developers. That subthread will debate the merits of Introduction to Algorithms vs everything else, and someone will mention a lisp book that changed their life. Probably Paradigms of Artificial Programming or On Lisp.

The Gang of Four will get nodded at. Like the Bible, Homer, or Peopleware it will be the book everyone says they've read but which almost nobody has actually read.

The C Programming Language will be mentioned. These days that means Zed Shaw will be named and hilarity will ensue.

Myself? I'd definitely have Code Complete (I still have my first edition), perhaps A Discipline for Software Engineering and Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art. I've found pretty much everything from Dorset House to be worth my time, so to PeopleWare I'd add The Deadline and Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies.

What we don't do in this industry, however, is read more widely. Get out of your rut. Read about history, read some classics, read deeply in another field you pursue as your hobby. Everything illuminates everything. Get out there, see the intellectual sights (for which, get a copy of Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun for a guided tour). You'll be a better developer and a better person for the trouble.

You saved me a comment, none of the books in OP are really 'must read' and most of them are about project management methodology, not programming.

I was going to add to what you said with a link to a specific former thread I remember that was good, and it caused me to stumble onto a new feature in Google that I haven't seen before and which is most excellent.

If you google for:

    site:news.ycombinator.com programming books

You get a summary with covers and links to Google Books of the most-mentioned books on HN.

Link to the search result page:

https://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&newwindow...

Image link incase you don't see it on your Google:

https://img.skitch.com/20120820-g8phi24s3ngq7khyimq5wqnabg.j...

Sure. Reading lightly in human factors and systems has been a real eye-opener. Reading deeply on Olympic weightlifting, strength training and so forth has also given what are to me deep analogies back into software development.

Similarly, some bits of the bible really speak to me, even though I'm an atheist and I think most of it is hilaribad. There is nothing new under the sun ...

I'll be honest, I've read a very small number of books on software development throughout the years. I've learned all my stuff on the way, from mistakes I've made, associated documentation, and from reading the code that's powering production systems from the engineers before me. In the end? I'm doing pretty well. I'm sure that anyone else in a similar situation would agree.

Reading these books isn't going to make you a rockstar/ninja/allstar programmer. Keep doing what you're doing, learn from the mistakes you make; the lessons you learn from them are going to last a lifetime. The lessons you learn from these books might make you a better programmer, but almost all of it will be gone in a week.

Here is the Reymond Chen blog, which I would +1, sorted by most popular post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/default.aspx?PostSortBy=...