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What are your favorite books?
December 13, 2006 9:30 PM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

If you could buy any computer book(s) or subscribe to any tech-related journal(s), what would it (they) be?

My employer is setting up a library of (paper) books/journals for the engineers to use. They're asking for ideas for books to buy. Basically, we'll get whatever we ask for.

What books would you suggest?

(We're mostly a Java/C shop specializing in patient monitoring equipment. Think embedded systems, algorithms, UNIX/Linux/Windows server admin, Java, XML, JiBX, Xerces, wireless technologies, GUI design, marketing for engineers (bridge the gap between suits and coders maybe?), Maven, Ant, Apache, JSP, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Agile code development, etc.)
posted by yellowbkpk to computers & internet (10 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
They would be a goddamn subscription to Safari Library. Seriously, completely ignoring the question of cost, being able to search the whole thing and bring up stuff instantly--from anywhere--makes it sooo much more valuable than physical books.

If you already have such a subscription, do tell, so we can not suggest books on it.
posted by trevyn at 9:45 PM on December 13, 2006


It was suggested that the company (which is very large) might be able to work out a deal with O'Reilly to get a "site license" for Safari.

Most of the engineers still want paper books though, so any of the "best" ones you can think of would still help.
posted by yellowbkpk at 9:50 PM on December 13, 2006


The *best* is hard to determine - my list would be at least 500 books...

Ummm - why not ask your engineers?

Give each of them a 'budget' (and potentially a topic area) and have them forward their requests to you - you ensure there are no duplicates and then buy 'em.


Bottom-up - it's their library, let 'em be involved. If they aren't reading development bloggers who already have good booklists to 'appropriate', then why aren't they?

Of course, some companies let their engineers have a budget to buy their own books and keep 'em in their own cubes (rubs hands, eagerly awaiting next shipment... ;-)
posted by jkaczor at 10:44 PM on December 13, 2006


Do they have any books already?

Maybe they could just order the books as needed, but add them to the library once they arrive. In my experience it's hard to know what book you need until you encounter a specific, unanticipated question.
posted by Tuffy at 1:06 AM on December 14, 2006


Get Knuth, even though you'll never read it. And then CLRS, because you'll actually read it.
posted by devilsbrigade at 3:29 AM on December 14, 2006


Ummm - why not ask your engineers?
They did ask the engineers, I'm one of them :).
Of course, some companies let their engineers have a budget to buy their own books and keep 'em in their own cubes
They do that too. This is an entirely different project.
posted by yellowbkpk at 5:26 AM on December 14, 2006


Dr Dobbs.

I confess I haven't read it in a few years but it used to have a good mix of the practical and technical, with a sprinkling of odd/fringe stuff that would at least be interesting and sometimes useful.
posted by outlier at 6:20 AM on December 14, 2006


Various books by Donald Norman: The Design of Everyday Things, Emotional Design

Visual Display of Quantitative Information (by Tufte)

Color Harmony Workbook (published by Rockport, I believe)

Maybe some of the newer textbooks used by a nearby engineering school, particularly slightly-less-focused but still important topics like cognitive psychology.

Basic reference materials - dictionary, thesaurus, style/grammar guide, atlas

It would be nice to have a good map of the world, too.

These suggestions are motivated by two ideas: engineers can request specific technical books themselves, but sometimes, they just need something new to stimulate ideas or get past a block - and a browsable library is perfect for this; and that it's good to revisit (or visit) design principles - even if you're not a "designer", it's good to know how to communicate with designers, and you'll end up designing things anyway.
posted by amtho at 7:26 AM on December 14, 2006


I second Tufte's books.

"The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master" by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Addison-Wesley, Oct 1999
ISBN: 020161622X
Get two copies.

"C: A Reference Manual"
by Samuel Harbison and Guy Steele
Prentice Hall, Feb 2002
ISBN: 0-13-089592X
posted by cmiller at 9:07 AM on December 14, 2006


Here's what I've suggested so far:

posted by yellowbkpk at 9:20 AM on December 14, 2006


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