I haven’t read a Flash book in many months. I’ve been reading a ton of stuff about patterns, architecture, design, etc.
This one: The Pragmatic Programmer is a gem. The book isn’t about any one language, methodology or even any single specific aspect of programming. It’s more of a “how to survive as a programmer” type of guide book. It revolves around 70 or so “tips”. These cover everything from design and architecting tips, to debugging, to how to estimate things and deal with coworkers and bosses. It’s a light and easy read, but will give you a serious insight at least once every couple of pages.
On a lot of the tips I found myself saying, “yeah, I do that.” But I think those are the exact points that have indeed been very successful for me. And when I look around and see others who aren’t doing those things, I see them struggling in those areas. I think striving to get in at least one of these points per week would not be a bad plan.
Yeah, definitly a great book. I found myself saying, yeah thats what I do but also found that things were better explained than I can explain it myself. Another book like that is “Joel on Software”. Might want to check that one out too
This is one of the three books I’ve most learnt from. The other two are “Refactoring”, by Martin Fowler ( a must read, as you pointed in my blog not too long ago ) and “Code Complete” by Steve McConnell.
As you said, they give you the hints and “tools” to survive as a programmer, no matter if you write Java, ActionScript, C# or whatever
The book contents looks pretty good.
I’ve been thinking in purchasing a book about those topics, but never found the time to search.
I’ll tell you what 😉
Cheers!
Yes, Refactoring is pretty much my favorite. Really changed my style of coding. I got part way through Code Complete. Lot of good stuff in there, but it’s so BIG.
Chafic, I’ll have to check out Joel on Software.
Joel on software ( both the blog and the book, which is a compilation of some of the articles that were published on the blog ) are a very good reading.
And, by the way, there’s another book I like a lot: “Refactoring to patterns” by Joshua Kerievsky
i read the first edition of code complete years ago and thought it was brilliant, recently saw a new edition so maybe i should buy it sometime.
as for books on patterns i would advise thinking in patterns by bruce eckel to anyone, his thinking in java is also well worth a read.