rc3.org Strong opinions weakly held

Those are both really excellent books.

Pragmatic Programmer might be a more entertaining selection, but I don’t think you would go wrong with either.

As for a recommendation, I am overly fond of (and generally gush about) Skiena’s “Algorithm Design Manual”.

Posted by Howard Berkey on 18 October 2008 @ 3am

Just recently I read “The Deadline” by Tom DeMarco. It’s a project management book, not a programming book, but honestly I believe any software developer would probably profit from reading it — and it’s very entertaining, too.

Posted by Magnus von Koeller on 18 October 2008 @ 4am

Judging from the folks at work, “Code Complete” is like “Middlemarch,” something everyone feels they should read but no one’s managed. While the Pragmatic Programmer gets read and raved over.

Posted by Thud on 18 October 2008 @ 7am

Given that you’re just getting started, I’d stick with PragProg. Code Complete is awesome, but it’s hefty; people may be put off strictly by the size.

AFA other suggestions, Joel Spolsky has a couple of essay collections out; selections from those could be fun (and again, relatively lightweight).

I’d be interested to hear how you got this put together; something of this nature is on my list of things to do, but I’ve got a lot of non-book readers in my working group and I’m not sure how to best build enthusiasm for the reading group idea.

Posted by genehack on 18 October 2008 @ 8am

Code Complete is a great book.

Here are some others, from a developer with similar taste in reading material: Coding Horror- Recommended Reading

Posted by Mike on 18 October 2008 @ 10am

My suggestions would be Pragmatic Programmer,, The Mythical Man Month, Code Craft, or Peopleware.

http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X

http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Craft-Practice-Writing-Excellent/dp/1593271190

http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-Second/dp/0932633439

The Productive Programmer is another good book. http://www.amazon.com/Productive-Programmer-Theory-Practice-OReilly/dp/0596519788

Posted by Devdas Bhagat on 18 October 2008 @ 1pm

Pragmatic is probably the first to pick. You might also look at Beautiful Code, which is an OReilly collection of essays from a couple dozen great programmers from Kernighan to Bray to Matz. The essays range from highly technical to purely philsophical. It’s a really interesting collection.

Posted by daveadams on 18 October 2008 @ 2pm

David Harel: “Algorithmics; The Spirit of Computing”

Posted by Bob on 18 October 2008 @ 9pm

Own both, love both.

Pragmatic programmer’s gold is page 14. Everything else is an expansion upon that.

I usually use Code complete to (re)learn something. I’ll flip to a page at random and read the chapter/section. 9/10 times I get an “aha!” moment.

Pragmatic Programmer is more readable than Code Complete as a complete, contiguous work, but I don’t believe that is the best use of the latter.

Posted by bryan on 20 October 2008 @ 1am