100 books like Effective C++

Smalltalk is not as common or popular as it once was, but the influence its design had on programming is hard to overstate.

Reading this book has changed how I think about object orientation, and how I design systems, learning the patterns of Smalltalk makes it clear what object oriented design is really intended to achieve.

When seeking a book on how to use a language effectively, getting one written by someone who helped design and implement the language is usually a great idea. With Effective Java, you get a book written by someone who contributed a significant amount to the language: Joshua Bloch had a lot to do with the design of the Java 5.0 features circa 2004, which is where Java moved for me from "inelegant" to "hey I can finally make things look good in this language." Bloch goes into considerable and passionate depth about each of the 90 items in the 2018 edition and will help you ensure you don't make the mistakes that can lead to defective or bad code.

During my first few weeks of JavaScript coding, I encountered what seemed to be an endless number of head-scratching moments: "I'm slowly reading the few lines of code I just wrote, it seems fine, so why isn't it doing what it looks like it should be doing?" Even more insidious at times than C++, JavaScript contains a number of fairly clever constructs, including things like hoisting, duck typing, and a loosey-goosey argument passing mechanism. This concise tome of fewer than 175 pages helped get me past those first few months, and as an author-stated goal, it helped me "learn to think in JavaScript."

When learning a new language, you'll want to avoid the mistake of assuming that you can adapt your old way of doing things to your new language (like I first tried many years ago). Even though Java and Ruby are both object-oriented languages, the "right" approach to implementing things is dramatically different between the two. Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby makes it easy to learn how to apply object-oriented design and to implement the code properly in Ruby, making your system easier to change as it grows.

This is the defining book on the C language, written by the authors of the language and published in 1978.

By the early 1980’s it became the standard for writing systems software, helped by the fact that the UNIX operating system was written in it. UNIX grew to become the world’s dominant operating system, running over 90% of the world’s web servers. 

By the time I encountered the language I already had programmed extensively in assembler, COBOL, FORTRAN, and other languages. I had written a commercial FORTRAN compiler. The language changed my world, and this book was unique then and now for being written by the creators of the language that changed the world of programming forever.

Nothing about all the languages since C makes things better – yes, including C++. All they do is add complexity and put unnecessary constraints on language, along with continuing the focus on language… show more.

Unless you are writing a greenfield app, you have legacy code around. And even if you are on a greenfield app, you are writing legacy code right now.

This book gives you techniques for working on such a codebase. It is a really good read for learning how to refactor safely so you can work with what you are inheriting. You might notice this book is 20 years old. It’s just as relevant today as when I first read it in 2004. The concepts don’t depend on the exact language syntax.

In fact, some of the examples are in a mix of Java, C#, and C++. I really appreciate the perspective on testing that I got by reading this book.

I'm a devoted advocate of functional programming and a passionate Haskell enthusiast.

Ironically, there was a time in my life when I was a student and held the belief that functional programming was merely an impractical academic pursuit.

However, I soon had a revelation that the techniques I employed in C++ to mitigate the inherent unsafety of the language actually aligned with the core principles of functional programming: immutability, purity, and composability.

This realization left a profound impression on me, prompting me to delve into learning Haskell. It proved to be a pivotal moment that significantly shaped my entire career trajectory.

As I delved deeper into functional programming, I discovered a significant void in terms of software engineering practices that were prevalent in the realm of object-oriented programming.

Drawing from my experiences in C++ and C#, I noticed numerous gaps in our understanding of how to build robust applications using… show more.

The title says it all. This is probably one of the first, if not the first book on secure coding, by a pioneer in the field. Robert worked tirelessly to make this happen. Although the book has been superseded by the secure coding standards that evolved from it, it is still a good read and contains a lot of useful information for developers.  

Not only does this book provide insight into the planning and development of one of the first visual IDEs, it’s overflowing with hilarious, profound, and pragmatic real-life lessons for how to manage a software team and deliver a complex project.

As a product of its time, the writing isn’t always politically correct. However, many of the lessons and memes are still part of our vernacular today: Don’t flip the bozo bit; If you build it, it will ship; and [Love] the customer.

Some of its lessons should be memes: Beware of [an engineer] in a room, Be an authority, not an authority figure, and Don’t trade a bad date for an equally bad date.

Some sections show their age in our current world of continuous delivery, but few current books have the humor and concise insight of this remarkable work.

This weighty tome delves deep into the low-level working of computer programs.

This book is a great resource for professional programmers who work close to the machine in such fields as embedded software, cybersecurity, and device drivers. Assuming a basic knowledge of the C language, Bryant and O’Hallaron, two CMU professors, teach how to read and understand compiled code, how to optimize it for better performance, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

This is a hard-core technical book, written by engineers for engineers, in a dense style that is nonetheless accessible and practical. I like the numerous applied problems, each accompanied by a worked-out solution.