Comments on: What are your favorite books?

Question: What are your favorite books?

yellowbkpk — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 21:30:16 -0800

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.)

By: trevyn

trevyn — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 21:45:55 -0800

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.

By: yellowbkpk

yellowbkpk — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 21:50:33 -0800

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.

By: jkaczor

jkaczor — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:44:10 -0800

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... ;-)

By: Tuffy

Tuffy — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:06:58 -0800

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.

By: devilsbrigade

devilsbrigade — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 03:29:03 -0800

Get Knuth, even though you'll never read it. And then CLRS, because you'll actually read it.

By: yellowbkpk

yellowbkpk — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 05:26:40 -0800

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.

By: outlier

outlier — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 06:20:12 -0800

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.

By: amtho

amtho — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 07:26:33 -0800

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.

By: cmiller

cmiller — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:07:09 -0800

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

By: yellowbkpk

yellowbkpk — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:20:42 -0800

Here's what I've suggested so far:

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman (ISBN:465051367)

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman (ISBN:465067107)

Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell (ISBN:735619670)

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte (ISBN:961392142)

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (ISBN:0060920432)

Thinking in Java (2nd Edition) by Bruce Eckel (ISBN:0130273635)

Introduction to Java Programming-Comprehensive Version (6th Edition) by Y Daniel Liang (ISBN:0132221586)

Effective Java Programming Language Guide by Joshua Bloch (ISBN:0201310058)

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt (ISBN:020161622X)

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series) by Erich Gamma (ISBN:0201633612)

Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck (ISBN:0321146530)

Concurrent Programming in Java(TM): Design Principles and Patterns (3rd Edition) (Java (Addison-Wesley)) by Douglas Lea (ISBN:0321256174)

Java(TM) Puzzlers: Traps, Pitfalls, and Corner Cases by Joshua Bloch (ISBN:032133678X)

Java(TM) Programming Language, The (4th Edition) (The Java Series) by Ken Arnold (ISBN:0321349806)

Programming Perl (3rd Edition) by Larry Wall (ISBN:0596000278)

Perl Cookbook, Second Edition by Tom Christiansen (ISBN:0596003137)

Head First Design Patterns (Head First) by Elisabeth Freeman (ISBN:0596007124)

Java Generics and Collections by Maurice Naftalin (ISBN:0596527756)

Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World by Venkat Subramaniam (ISBN:097451408X)

Java Network Programming, 2nd Edition by Merlin Hughes (ISBN:188477749X)