My most-used and valued resource material. Each book image is a link to Amazon if you want
to buy a copy for your own library.
Title
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Comments
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The Mythical Man-Month
Frederick P. Brooks
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The quintessential Software Project Management Manual - should be required reading for all
software managers!
The book is a collection of essays describing the first attempts in the 1970's to apply
engineering methodology to Software Development. Some of the examples are dated but still applicable.
A Second Anniversary Edition was printed in 1995 with updates and additional essays, but the
classic chapters remain as they were.
It coined one of the first principles of software management,
Brooks's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
How does a project get to be a year late? ... One day at a time.
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Code Complete
Steve McConnell
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The consummate Software Manual, it should be read before writing your first line of
code. The topic is limited to software construction - the period of the development
life cycle also called code and unit test. It contains a wealth of information on
the mechanics of coding - the prerequisites, style, and verification. You
probably know some but not all this stuff, and you really ought to if you call
yourself a professional.
The techniques described in this book fill the void after
introductory and advanced programming texts... Some of the most beneficial
programming aids are practices that you can use regardless of the environment
or language that you are working in,
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The Pragmatic Programmer
Andrew Hunt & David Thomas
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A great book, especially for beginners (but might help us all). It's a guide to the
classic pitfalls and traps that encumber software projects, as well as describing best-practices
that work. A lot of ideas you may already know implicitly, but seeing it explicitly
written down reinforces its importance.
Care about your craft.
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PHP Cookbook
David Sklar & Adam Trachtenberg
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I like the entire O'Reilly Cookbook series but the PHP book is one of my favorites. These
are not learning books - they contain "recipes" for solving problems (and ain't that what
engineering is about - solving problems?). It may not be the exact solution to your
particular problem, but it'll get you pointed in the right direction.
This book is a collection of solutions to common tasks in PHP.
We've tried to include material that will appeal to everyone from newbies to wizards.
If we've succeeded, you'll learn something (or perhaps many things) from the
PHP Cookbook.
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Managing Projects with make
Andrew Oram & Steve Talbott
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Most projects use multiple toolsets, with multiple languages, and several environments -
think application, relational database, HMI. And most projects want a single push button action
to do a build. And the only way to get there is via make. Who knew there was
so much to know - unless you've ever tried to figure out why a makefile failed to
build.
While you can get a lot out of just using make to automate
frequently-used commands, it rewards each quantum of effort that you invest in studying
its operation.
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Rites of Passage
John Lucht
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Not an engineering book - think of it as cheap career guidance. A guide to executive
job-changing, its applicable to engineers too (although the book's subtitle is
"At $100,000 to $1 Million+" !!). It's a guide to the labyrinth of job search methods,
including Internet, want-ads, and headhunters. Extremely useful whether you are
actively searching, laid off, or just want to know your worth.
If you don't pay attention and make sure you're getting what
you really deserve and want from your career, you have no one else to blame.
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