The first four are good books that will improve your code. Man Month will let you recognise bullshit silver bullets so you can avoid them. I would like to add Ed Yourdon's Death March, so you can recognise death marches and know when to leave your company.
MMM is important if you plan on actually getting a job as a dev. You are frequently being managed by people that are not technical. They will (un)knowingly take advantage of you and you'll end up writing garbage code and working long hours. I see this happen to juniors all the time because they don't stand up for themselves. Sometimes they're smart enough to ask a senior to step-in on their behalf but I see them get run over all the time.
Reading code is more your job than writing it, and it's a big 'good to great' step. You wouldn't want to write professionally without reading the masters' works, would you?
This really depends on the language that you are: most comfortable with and/or most interested in learning. On a personal level I was mostly taught C for my major, so that is what i prefer (you might like java or python instead). The three main books I used in college to learn C were,
Absolute Beginner's Guide to C by Greg Perry
The Joy of C by Lawrence Miller & Alexander Quilici
Absolute C++ by Walter Savitch
Youtube/Google also helped me immeasurably. I hope this helps.
18 comments
15 u/fracker_monocle 17 Mar 2016 23:12
K&R C
Code Complete
The Pragmatic Programmer
The Art of Unix Programming
The Mythical Man Month
7 u/BunyipMoan 18 Mar 2016 00:54
The first four are good books that will improve your code. Man Month will let you recognise bullshit silver bullets so you can avoid them. I would like to add Ed Yourdon's Death March, so you can recognise death marches and know when to leave your company.
3 u/ForgotMyName 18 Mar 2016 18:03
MMM is important if you plan on actually getting a job as a dev. You are frequently being managed by people that are not technical. They will (un)knowingly take advantage of you and you'll end up writing garbage code and working long hours. I see this happen to juniors all the time because they don't stand up for themselves. Sometimes they're smart enough to ask a senior to step-in on their behalf but I see them get run over all the time.
9 u/Men13 18 Mar 2016 03:27
None. You don't need to read any books. The books are only good once you already know how to program.
To learn, "just do it" and use google to find short examples / demos. That and stackoverflow.
1 u/mzrt [OP] 18 Mar 2016 13:46
Thanks, this has been my approach so far. Stack overflow has been a great resource.
3 u/SwiftLion 18 Mar 2016 01:11
Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
Reading code is more your job than writing it, and it's a big 'good to great' step. You wouldn't want to write professionally without reading the masters' works, would you?
3 u/ZigZagWanderer 18 Mar 2016 10:53
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Sussman & Abelson
2 u/BlueSpeed 18 Mar 2016 11:59
Clean Code by Robert C Martian. There are many good books for how to write code. This one is for how to write maintainable code.
2 u/Esqueleto 18 Mar 2016 17:45
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
It's all you'll ever need. SICP is love SICP is life.
1 u/effusive_ermine 17 Mar 2016 23:56
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337338.The_UNIX_Programming_Environment
1 u/rms_returns 18 Mar 2016 02:03
Beej's Guide to C.
Beej's Guide to Networking.
1 u/Lunch_Box 18 Mar 2016 02:19
This really depends on the language that you are: most comfortable with and/or most interested in learning. On a personal level I was mostly taught C for my major, so that is what i prefer (you might like java or python instead). The three main books I used in college to learn C were,
Absolute Beginner's Guide to C by Greg Perry
The Joy of C by Lawrence Miller & Alexander Quilici
Absolute C++ by Walter Savitch
Youtube/Google also helped me immeasurably. I hope this helps.
1 u/TheRealAmalek 18 Mar 2016 03:33
The only book you need is the Turner Diaries!
1 u/EmmaPage 18 Mar 2016 05:31
If you are a Wordpress Developer,I would like to recommend this book just for you: Wordpress E-Book from Scratch
Other Books like Balaguruswamy For Java will help you out. For Php,Android go for Lynda Books and tutorial
1 u/thefloodcontrol 18 Mar 2016 07:00
Learning Perl, or, if you aren't entirely new, Programming Perl.
1 u/ShowMeYourKitties 08 Apr 2016 20:31
This one (/s)