Top 5 Most Impressive Books Every Software Developer Should Read

Not so long ago, a link flashed to a fairly recent (fall 2011) English-language vote with a modest title "the most impressive book that every software developer should read " and a description:

If you could go back to the very beginning of your development career and tell yourself yourself: “read this particular book”, at the very beginning of your development career, what book would you recommend?

The topic of translation of foreign professional IT literature is quite acute, many people like to read books in the original for various reasons, such as the time of the Russian translation to be released for years, insufficient professionalism of the translator and the corresponding loss of subtleties and author's style, etc.

However, in this short post I will take the liberty of listing the TOP 5 of the very books that won the vote, translated into Russian. And to give small comments, because books really deserve it. Yes, personally, I would change some places, but we rely on the “opinion of the hall” of the Stack Overflow resource .

1. The first place with a result of ~ 1700 votes was taken by the book:

The Perfect Code Author: S. McConnell The same Steve McConnell, who is credited with the phrase: “ Write the code as if it would be accompanied by a violent psychopath who knows where you live. ” The first edition of this book was published in 1993, the second - in 2004. The first Russian translation was in 2005. “Encyclopedia of good programming practices. Perfect code focuses on personal art, craftsmanship - those things that we intuitively call writing clean code . This is a book that can describe the correct formatting of the code and the number of spaces for 50 pages. ” Joe Spolsky.

2. The second place with a close result of ~ 1,500 votes was taken by the book:

The pragmatic programmer. The journey from apprentice to master Authors: E. Hunt, D. Thomas The first English edition of this book came out in 1999. The first Russian edition - in 2004 in the series "Programmer's Library". “This is a great book for programmers who somewhere somehow learned to program, maybe at the institute, but are not quite sure what to do and how. It's like the difference between a sketch and a finished work. What you studied at the university is sketches, sketches, and you seem to be able to paint beautifully, but if you still feel that you don’t quite know where to start, if someone suggested you write a program for sharing music through P2P networks then this book is for you. " Joe Spolsky.

3. The third place is already with a significant lag ~ 930 votes took the book:

The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Authors: Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sassman The book in English is uploaded by the authors in free online access and even equipped with video lectures . The structure and interpretation of computer programs was taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and this course has had an impact on the world in computer science curricula over the past two decades. Theywriteon stackoverflow that the book will literally enlighten us (will enlighten you) and after it there will be a desire to write great programs. And what if all the other books make us a better programmer, then this particular one will make a programmer out of the reader.

4. The fourth place with a score of ~ 790 votes was taken by the book:

C programming language Authors: Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie Honestly, it’s not entirely clear to me why a book about a particular programming language has come to such a high place, especially in our time of high-level languages ​​and frameworks. Perhaps because the book by Kernigan and Ritchie is a cult book on C programming from the creators of the language, where they tell their readers about the wide possibilities of C and the features that distinguish it from other structural programming languages. Indeed, at one time, the C language was developed specifically for the Unix operating system, but the created language was so universal that it found its application in other areas of programming.

5. And completes the top five with a score of ~ 680 votes, the book:

Algorithms Construction and Analysis Authors: Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest, Clifford Stein The book is a translation of a textbook on the course of constructing and analyzing effective algorithms written at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; it understands the most important classes of fast algorithms and methods for constructing them. The presentation is detailed and mathematically rigorous. The book can be used as a textbook and reference; It will be useful for both students and IT professionals.

In the following places are located no less remarkable books, such as GoF Design Patterns , Martin Fowler's Refactoring , F. Brooks ' Mythical Man-Month , etc., books are really excellent, all of them simply cannot be listed in one review .

I hope this short review will help someone find an interesting book for later reading.

A few links:

The original vote.

Computer Literature Reviews by Joe Spolsky.