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My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan

My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan Design Patterns - Gang of Four Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates Code Complete - Steve McConnell Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco Clean Code - Robert C. Martin The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer The best books I've ever read: Principles - Ray Dalio The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin Influence - Robert B. Cialdini The Startup Way - Eric Ries The Lean Startup - Eric Ries 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh Management - Peter F. Drucker Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

ronyfadel 7y ago
Sounds like you’re diving head first into web development? Or taking it to the next level? Careful not to burn yourself out, that is a long list of technical books, that have nothing to do with the books you’ve read and enjoyed in the past that are from other genres.
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  Long story short, I am an entrepreneur who sold a company and am transitioning into maximizing my engineering knowledge before diving back into entrepreneurship. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying top performers and learned how to manage stress levels effectively. I do exercise, meditation, yoga, stretching, forest bathing, mindfulness, journaling, and other activities that battle against burnout. I am much more worried about failing to meet my goals than I am burnout. Appreciate your concern though!
  - bilekas 7y ago
    > forest bathing That sounds pretty awesome..
  - ronyfadel 7y ago
    Kudos to you and best of luck :) I’m an engineer by trade, but I’ve quit my job recently to start my own thing, and moving into web dev (my experience is in native dev), so I both share your concerns and your reading list!
  - lopis 7y ago
    You sound like a Tim. Are you a Tim?
  - smoe 7y ago
    I'd say if the goal is to maximize engineering knowledge, less might be more. Especially if you don't plan to apply it on a day to day basis as an engineer. For example, I'm currently reading Clean Architecture by Martin that is on your list. While the words on the pages are not hard to understand and it doesn't rely on any advanced computer science/engineering concepts, actually comprehending the posed principles, their implications, how to reason about them and how to pull them off well in a real world scenario is absolutely non-trivial. I have met many people in tech that devoured douzends of books and conference talks, hundreds of podcast, blog posts, articles and that were an endless source of catchy quotes found in them. But they weren't able to actually apply all this "knowledge" to anything beyond the most basic. And in cases where these people where in leadership/management positions this often had negative impact on the project/product. To finish with a catchy quote from Clean Architecture: "The more haste, the less speed."
  - criddell 7y ago
    No time for fiction?
matsemann 7y ago
You have quite overlap between some stuff. I would recommend "Clean Code", but then skip the rest from the same author, at least for a while. While "Code Complete" is good, it's loooong and also a lot of the same stuff. For patterns, "Head First" is a bit childish maybe, but the content is fine for someone learning to recognize patterns. "Patterns of Enterprise..." is also good, but more dry. I'd stick with one of those two. And then skip the one by GoF, unless you want to read the "original" for some reason. "The Pragmatic Programmer" is probably the book that has shaped my work the most.
- derangedHorse 7y ago
  Code Complete seemed to be a book with a lot of dense, redundant content. Reading what was written had me feeling like I was reading information that could have been written by myself. Clean Code on the other hand (along with Refactoring by Martin Fowler) changed the way I write code for the better.
  - mnicky 7y ago
    Not a long time ago I've found this comment about how to read Code Complete: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R65Q50S27SSWE https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R65Q50S27SSWE - After reading the comment, maybe I'll consider to give the book another try with a different approach :)
- mnicky 7y ago
  Another "Patterns" book that seems to be interesting is "Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture For Dummies" by Robert Hanmer. I've actually ordered it and look forward to read it in the coming year. There's also "Patterns for Fault Tolerant Software" by the same author that looks pretty interesting too.
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>Principles - Ray Dalio I'm confused by the praise for this book. I couldn't finish it. No real insight or anything technical, just fluff (Dreams + Reality + Determination = Success!). I'm with Josh Wolfe [1]; I think Bridgewater is going to be exposed as one of the random, large hedge funds that got lucky for a spell, but is not any better than an index fund, ex-fees. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723233476608 https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723233476608
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jesterson 7y ago
  I thought I am the only one here. Managed to finish it (unfortunately) but it was completely wasted time.
king_panic 7y ago
Based on your Best Books list, check out David Goggins book 'Cant Hurt Me'. I found him through a podcast he did with Joe Rogan and it resonated with me on a deep personal level. It ultimately inspired me to change my life: I lost 50 lbs since, got a raise and promotion at work and travelled more in 2019 than the last 5 years.
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  I love Goggins! That's a great book. So hard to believe, but there's documented evidence for his achievements. Unbelievable.
- hooda 7y ago
  Can't hurt me was so masochistic that after 50% of the book I started thinking why is he doing "that much". It's a good book no doubt. It makes you feel that limits are just in mind. But I've to give it a break after hearing (audible) 66% and will return to it later :)
crimsonalucard 7y ago
Skip design patterns, I think it locks developers into a sort of religious loyalty towards OOP abstractions. When you understand the pattern it describes you get a sort of catharsis for discovering a new interesting thing. In reality, any of these patterns are just bad despite the cleverness. Modern programming is heading in a different direction already so it'd be better to move forward without it.
- criddell 7y ago
  I disagree because people often don't have the luxury of working on greenfield projects. When you are working with an old codebase, you are going to run across design patterns. You will see terms like factory, builder, observer, decorator, pool, flyweight, etc... and it's going to be helpful to know what those are. A lot of the value of design patterns was in the terminology.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Times have changed where few non-greenfield projects use these patterns as well. Languages like Go and javascript will rarely have these patterns. I would avoid depending on the programming language. If you are working with Java or C++ these are the two languages where these patterns will appear, even in greenfield projects due to developer loyalty. If you are working with languages other than this, then you are more likely not to encounter these patterns that often. Thus avoid the book unless you want to become an expert in Java. Also these patterns can be learned without the GoF book just off of quick scans of articles on the internet.
    - james_s_tayler 7y ago
      What has replaced them? Presumably some of the problems they intend to solve still exist. Is there some resource you can point to that says in the past when faced with situation X developers tended to use pattern Y, these days that has been superseded with way of doing things Z? I've seen some of those patterns leveraged to great effect in modern software. But genuinely curious about alternative ways to solve the same problems. I've definitely noticed the trend towards more and more functional programming these days. I doubt it's simply a case of "just use FP and there are no more problems".
dlivingston 7y ago
As someone who approximately has their life figured out and is approximately in a good place, would you still recommend Peterson's 12 Rules for Life?
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  >As someone who ... is approximately in a good place Are you going to be happy on your death bed that you lived "approximately" a good life? I can definitely recommend the book. It could reveal to you those aspects of your life that you feel are off the mark.
james_s_tayler 7y ago
You'd probably really Technology Strategy Patterns. That book is seriously underated.
jmulho 7y ago
Looking at your top priority books I recalled a slide from one of Brian Will's videos on object oriented programming: "Object Oriented Programming is Bad" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1iUe6IofM&t=326s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1iUe6IofM&t=326s. At around the 43:51 he pulls up a slide picturing several of these (and similar) books. Here is a rough quote: "I can tell you from personal experience of having read these books that you don't need to read them. They don't have answers, they aren't going to square the circle, and you are going to waste productive years of your life trying to live up to their ideals." Now that is just one rather controversial opinion, but we are talking about potentially wasting productive years of your life so I wanted to let you know that opinion is out there. That being said, it would probably be hugely beneficial to read a few of those books and then watch a few of Brian's videos (he has three or four on the topic) and sort out your own opinion. Also, Brian's other (not controversial) videos (dozens) are excellent for learning about programming. Also, Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think is a keeper. I thought of it last night when I was checking out at a store. I stuck my debit card into the thing, entered my PIN number, then clicked the big blue button that said "Skip PIN". The woman behind the counter said "don't worry about it; everybody does that!"

ronyfadel 7y ago

Sounds like you’re diving head first into web development? Or taking it to the next level? Careful not to burn yourself out, that is a long list of technical books, that have nothing to do with the books you’ve read and enjoyed in the past that are from other genres.

douglaswlance 7y ago
Long story short, I am an entrepreneur who sold a company and am transitioning into maximizing my engineering knowledge before diving back into entrepreneurship. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying top performers and learned how to manage stress levels effectively. I do exercise, meditation, yoga, stretching, forest bathing, mindfulness, journaling, and other activities that battle against burnout. I am much more worried about failing to meet my goals than I am burnout. Appreciate your concern though!
- bilekas 7y ago
  > forest bathing That sounds pretty awesome..
- ronyfadel 7y ago
  Kudos to you and best of luck :) I’m an engineer by trade, but I’ve quit my job recently to start my own thing, and moving into web dev (my experience is in native dev), so I both share your concerns and your reading list!
- lopis 7y ago
  You sound like a Tim. Are you a Tim?
- smoe 7y ago
  I'd say if the goal is to maximize engineering knowledge, less might be more. Especially if you don't plan to apply it on a day to day basis as an engineer. For example, I'm currently reading Clean Architecture by Martin that is on your list. While the words on the pages are not hard to understand and it doesn't rely on any advanced computer science/engineering concepts, actually comprehending the posed principles, their implications, how to reason about them and how to pull them off well in a real world scenario is absolutely non-trivial. I have met many people in tech that devoured douzends of books and conference talks, hundreds of podcast, blog posts, articles and that were an endless source of catchy quotes found in them. But they weren't able to actually apply all this "knowledge" to anything beyond the most basic. And in cases where these people where in leadership/management positions this often had negative impact on the project/product. To finish with a catchy quote from Clean Architecture: "The more haste, the less speed."
- criddell 7y ago
  No time for fiction?

matsemann 7y ago

You have quite overlap between some stuff. I would recommend "Clean Code", but then skip the rest from the same author, at least for a while. While "Code Complete" is good, it's loooong and also a lot of the same stuff. For patterns, "Head First" is a bit childish maybe, but the content is fine for someone learning to recognize patterns. "Patterns of Enterprise..." is also good, but more dry. I'd stick with one of those two. And then skip the one by GoF, unless you want to read the "original" for some reason. "The Pragmatic Programmer" is probably the book that has shaped my work the most.

derangedHorse 7y ago
Code Complete seemed to be a book with a lot of dense, redundant content. Reading what was written had me feeling like I was reading information that could have been written by myself. Clean Code on the other hand (along with Refactoring by Martin Fowler) changed the way I write code for the better.
- mnicky 7y ago
  Not a long time ago I've found this comment about how to read Code Complete: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R65Q50S27SSWE https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R65Q50S27SSWE - After reading the comment, maybe I'll consider to give the book another try with a different approach :)
mnicky 7y ago
Another "Patterns" book that seems to be interesting is "Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture For Dummies" by Robert Hanmer. I've actually ordered it and look forward to read it in the coming year. There's also "Patterns for Fault Tolerant Software" by the same author that looks pretty interesting too.

aguyfromnb 7y ago

>Principles - Ray Dalio I'm confused by the praise for this book. I couldn't finish it. No real insight or anything technical, just fluff (Dreams + Reality + Determination = Success!). I'm with Josh Wolfe [1]; I think Bridgewater is going to be exposed as one of the random, large hedge funds that got lucky for a spell, but is not any better than an index fund, ex-fees. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723233476608 https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723233476608

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jesterson 7y ago
I thought I am the only one here. Managed to finish it (unfortunately) but it was completely wasted time.

king_panic 7y ago

Based on your Best Books list, check out David Goggins book 'Cant Hurt Me'. I found him through a podcast he did with Joe Rogan and it resonated with me on a deep personal level. It ultimately inspired me to change my life: I lost 50 lbs since, got a raise and promotion at work and travelled more in 2019 than the last 5 years.

douglaswlance 7y ago
I love Goggins! That's a great book. So hard to believe, but there's documented evidence for his achievements. Unbelievable.
hooda 7y ago
Can't hurt me was so masochistic that after 50% of the book I started thinking why is he doing "that much". It's a good book no doubt. It makes you feel that limits are just in mind. But I've to give it a break after hearing (audible) 66% and will return to it later :)

crimsonalucard 7y ago

Skip design patterns, I think it locks developers into a sort of religious loyalty towards OOP abstractions. When you understand the pattern it describes you get a sort of catharsis for discovering a new interesting thing. In reality, any of these patterns are just bad despite the cleverness. Modern programming is heading in a different direction already so it'd be better to move forward without it.

criddell 7y ago
I disagree because people often don't have the luxury of working on greenfield projects. When you are working with an old codebase, you are going to run across design patterns. You will see terms like factory, builder, observer, decorator, pool, flyweight, etc... and it's going to be helpful to know what those are. A lot of the value of design patterns was in the terminology.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Times have changed where few non-greenfield projects use these patterns as well. Languages like Go and javascript will rarely have these patterns. I would avoid depending on the programming language. If you are working with Java or C++ these are the two languages where these patterns will appear, even in greenfield projects due to developer loyalty. If you are working with languages other than this, then you are more likely not to encounter these patterns that often. Thus avoid the book unless you want to become an expert in Java. Also these patterns can be learned without the GoF book just off of quick scans of articles on the internet.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    What has replaced them? Presumably some of the problems they intend to solve still exist. Is there some resource you can point to that says in the past when faced with situation X developers tended to use pattern Y, these days that has been superseded with way of doing things Z? I've seen some of those patterns leveraged to great effect in modern software. But genuinely curious about alternative ways to solve the same problems. I've definitely noticed the trend towards more and more functional programming these days. I doubt it's simply a case of "just use FP and there are no more problems".

dlivingston 7y ago

As someone who approximately has their life figured out and is approximately in a good place, would you still recommend Peterson's 12 Rules for Life?

douglaswlance 7y ago
>As someone who ... is approximately in a good place Are you going to be happy on your death bed that you lived "approximately" a good life? I can definitely recommend the book. It could reveal to you those aspects of your life that you feel are off the mark.

james_s_tayler 7y ago

You'd probably really Technology Strategy Patterns. That book is seriously underated.

jmulho 7y ago

Looking at your top priority books I recalled a slide from one of Brian Will's videos on object oriented programming: "Object Oriented Programming is Bad" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1iUe6IofM&t=326s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1iUe6IofM&t=326s. At around the 43:51 he pulls up a slide picturing several of these (and similar) books. Here is a rough quote: "I can tell you from personal experience of having read these books that you don't need to read them. They don't have answers, they aren't going to square the circle, and you are going to waste productive years of your life trying to live up to their ideals." Now that is just one rather controversial opinion, but we are talking about potentially wasting productive years of your life so I wanted to let you know that opinion is out there. That being said, it would probably be hugely beneficial to read a few of those books and then watch a few of Brian's videos (he has three or four on the topic) and sort out your own opinion. Also, Brian's other (not controversial) videos (dozens) are excellent for learning about programming. Also, Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think is a keeper. I thought of it last night when I was checking out at a store. I stuck my debit card into the thing, entered my PIN number, then clicked the big blue button that said "Skip PIN". The woman behind the counter said "don't worry about it; everybody does that!"