Books Part IV: At Work
I’ve amassed a stack of books at work over the last three years. Some of them are near to me, a few are professionally useful, and others I just happened to finish at work.
From top to bottom:
- Vagabonding *Taken — I’ve mentioned this book before. It was something of a game-changer for me. Since first reading this more than a year ago I’ve come to adopt some of the philosophies Ralph lays out. Even if it turns out I hate travel with a passion, the mindset towards consumption, possessions, and life’s focus have proven valuable.
- Love Is the Killer App *Taken — The book has a ridiculous name. The core concept of the book, “Lovecatting,” is beyond ridiculous. But a silly name doesn’t change the fact that the message is spot on. Learn a lot, share your knowledge, help people, and good things will happen to you. And unlike some books on this list, the stories and suggestions are useful. Crazy!
- Simpleology — Here, let me save you $15 and a half a day of reading: “Did you know there’s such a thing as logic? Do you know what logical fallacies are? You shouldn’t think in fallacies. Keep things simple! It’s that easy! The end.” What. The. Fuck. If you’ve never taken PHIL 101 or, I don’t know, scored higher than 70 on an IQ test, go ahead and take this book from me!
- Never Eat Alone *Taken — This book gets some flack. Some people call it systematic in its approach to relationships, or often complain about certain sections of the book. One of the great things about this book is that it is segmented into individually digestible chapters. You might like his approach to conferences but hate his tactics for meeting people in your industry you idolize. Fine. I agree with enough of this book to recommend it to any entrepreneurial spirit I meet.
- The Pragmatic Programmer — People who’ve read it will tell you: Read it! I’m lucky to have been forced to read it in school. If you’re anyway remotely close to the ground level of a software development project, read it. If you’re some high up manager of a software development project, read it twice.
- Design Patterns *Taken — Coming from a Computer Science background into frontend web development, most of the classes I took appear “useless.” They aren’t. A design patterns book and a data structures book (next in the list) are things that anyone in the coding business should read, even if you only deal with headers, font sizes, divs, and “all that nonsense.” They make you think.
- Data Structures & Algorithm Analysis in Java *Taken — See description above.
- Software Project Survival Guide *Taken — Another school book. I guess this book is better for the folks who want to look at a project, from a corporate standpoint, as something other than a developer.
- C++ Primer Plus — Uh yea, follow the damn link.
- Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition — You can have it, but considering it’s a full major release behind on Rails, I’d really suggest something more current.
Whew, ok that is it for my books. If you would like any of the untaken books, just contact me one way or another.
Published on February 16, 2010
