My rule of thumb is the further away from pure computer science you go, the less likely a book is useful and will stay on your shelf in the long run (and the pr

My rule of thumb is the further away from pure computer science you go, the less likely a book is useful and will stay on your shelf in the long run (and the presence of solid alternatives): - Frameworks: Only in rare cases should you buy a book, read the source code itself and/or online documentation. - Programming languages/paradigms: Only buy a book that gets into the nitty gritty (e.g. Effective Java, Programming in Scala) or helps you wade into a new language (e.g. Learn you some Haskell for great good, if you are new to Haskell). - Computer science-y books: Buy them all! (e.g. Hackers delight, introduction to algorithms, bayesian reasoning and machine learning, purely functional data structures)