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Joel on Software
Joel Spolsky
Joel believes that you only need a few great programmers to produce products that are smart, usable and customer oriented. From there, he builds his company to attract, retain and entertain top programing talent.
As he goes and does these things, he’s written down his thoughts on his blog, and then pushed those posts out in book form to get people like myself who worship the man to pay for the privilege. Yes I’m encouraging you to do the same. Some of his topics: Choosing a Language, Interviewing , Incentive Pay Considered Harmful and on and on, you can see the table of contents here.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gunderloy
This was one of the first non coding programming books I read. I was actually using almost all the concepts from the book already (bug tracking system, source control, unit tests), but it really started to mature my understanding of what my job entails and how I deliver software.
Its a pretty basic book, as it hits many common topics, and even the more complicated topics it does at a high level, but for many people they don’t ever get these concepts explained to them.
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Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices
Robert C. Martin
I wouldn’t recommend starting on this book till you’ve read the book Coder to Developer. After that though, I think this is the next book you must read. While Coder to Developer took a high level look at some agile programming concepts, this book delivers an in-depth look at the key techniques that can directly relate to your coding style and abilities.
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Designing With Web Standards
Jeffrey Zeldman
When I took the position of UI Dev lead at Daptiv. I knew the concepts I wanted to implement. Semantic Markup, XHTML, death to table based layouts! Yet there is no API for such concepts, there was no place I could go to find out what I needed to know. Things like the reason to use the EM tag vs the I tag, or whats so wrong with table based layouts anyway? After about 3 different books on the subject, I was lucky enough to find Jeffrey Zeldman’s book about designing (developing really) with web standards.
While the information I was looking for at the time was Semantic Markup and proper usage of XHTML, I also received a heavy dose of Web Standards information; CSS, ECMAScript and the DOM all get covered on why you should care, and proper usage.
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Peopleware
Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister
Prepare to be frustrated. Peopleware is a collection of observations and studies that talk about the interaction of people with each other and their work environment.
Why be frustrated you might ask? Well, the book has what some people would call, extreme ideas. Things like developers should have quiet working conditions (essentially they need offices).
Teams shouldn’t be shuffled, they should gel and learn to work together as a well oiled machine (sounds good in theory, but how often does it happen?). Because these ideas are a bit extreme,
the book reads like a list of ignored good advice. You’ll be frustrated you’ll have to work 2 feet from the loudest person in the office and have 5 phones go off next to you throughout the day. -
Coding Horror
Jeff Atwood
There’s no words to properly express my thoughts on Coding Horror except, Must Read. Jeff covers pretty much every topic in the computer world, and will constantly
inform you on something you had no clue was interesting. Then he will deliver a nugget of information that will either be supremely profound, or will cause your creative juices to flow.
Either way, you luck out when you read Coding Horror. -
Cory Foy
I like to read Cory Foy because he’s proof it works. Agile works. Scrum works. Cory Foy is an Agile proponent who recently was promoted to manager of a development team, and
talks about putting the agile practices to work. -
Scott Hanselman
Scott does a podcast called Hanselminutes that has ruined all other podcasts for me. He talks about interesting topics, asks great questions that moves the conversation along,
and does that Star Trek thing where he takes a very complex topic and explains it in childlike fashion.Also, Scott maintains an amazing developer tools list that that is very comprehensive. Covers things like, Notepad replacements, Launchers, Stuff he Just Digs and has a Top 10 list that
spans all the topics for a developer must install list. Constantly updated, this is really what seems to have vaulted Scott into the spotlight. Yet its his insightful blog posts
that really makes him worth following. -
Interesting Finds
Jason Haley
Jason’s blog is solely about other blog posts out there that he reads that he finds interesting. Since Jason is a Web Developer in the .NET arena, he tends to have articles
of great interest to me. -
John Resig
John Resig’s (creator of jQuery) personal site. He has a wide range of topics he likes to cover and this is really one of the best sites on the web to follow the forefront of
the JavaScript frontier. -
Signal vs Noise
37 Signals
I know 37 signals by reputation only. I’ve heard that they developed the Ruby on Rails framework to make developing applications easier. I’ve heard they are also one of the strictest
groups in terms of accepting patches to their open source software; that perfection is absolutely expected, and even genius is beneficial to getting your patches accepted. And they also have a strong reputation of developing software with User Experience in mind, and savvy business principles. With such a reputation, how could you not read their blog? -
Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.
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Coder To Developer
Mike Gundelroy
DOUBLE CHECK AUTHOR NAMES.