Do you have a favorite programming book and if so, what is it?

[honey the codewitch]

In all seriousness, I adopt a more relaxed style for my personal projects versus my professional projects. The thing is, after years of confining myself to the house style (whatever shop i'm at) working my own way is liberating. Maybe I'm a bit extreme about it. The other thing is, and maybe I shouldn't admit this here but I often am not thinking when I'm writing code. It just comes to me, and I let it. I've written some of my best code that way, so I don't fight it, but it's a bit like free association writing so it's going to reflect my underlying style preferences.

Real programmers use butterflies

[Amarnath S]

One book I would like to add is Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, Second Edition: McConnell, Steve[^]

[Lost User]

Algorithms, by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne

It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food

[honey the codewitch]

I used to have that book. Steve McConnell is great!

Real programmers use butterflies

[Greg Utas]

That's interesting, because I don't recall using Visitor. It probably depends on your problem domains. The patterns that resonated most with me were Chain of Responsibility, Abstract Factory, and Observer, and the simpler Singleton and Flyweight. I'd already used them but now had good names for them.

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[honey the codewitch]

Yeah it really depends on what you're doing. I've just had several occasions where I basically need to query an object model, and a visitor can be a foundation of that.

Real programmers use butterflies

[Vikram A Punathambekar]

X| It's one of the few highly acclaimed books I was not able to finish. Couldn't go beyond 20 odd pages. Another is Catch 22.

Cheers, विक्रम "We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread :doh:

[Jacquers]

Not a programming book, but I have a copy of A+ core hardware on my desk. It's underneath my monitor to raise it's height ;) :P

[Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter]

Not that I reading it anymore, but have a special place for my copy of PC Intern - System Programming by Michael Tischer... It is about DOS so mostly irrelevant, but I've learned a lot about how to see things from that book...

"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012

[Stepan Hakobyan]

Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries by Krzysztof Cwalina, Jeremy Barton, Brad Abrams

[M Vo]

Yes. "Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin. His central point is that most of the time you READ code, so you have to write it in a way that you can read it easily. And he shows how to do this - and wrote the book in a way that you can read even the book easily.

[jhaga]

C# and the .NET Platform by Andrew Troelsen

jhaga

[Andrew Leeder]

'C' Programming, K & R, first edition.

[Sander Rossel]

honey the codewitch wrote:

I adopt a more relaxed style for my personal projects versus my professional projects.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." —Aristotle I couldn't even adopt a relaxed style if I wanted to. I have one style and it's as relaxed as can be. And I've used this style in multiple teams and I never had complaints. Well, no complaints on my style at least :laugh:

honey the codewitch wrote:

I often am not thinking when I'm writing code

So consistent with your posting here? ;p But seriously, if single-line if-statements are your worst crime you're doing a pretty good job! I've seen 100+ line functions, 3000+ line classes (WinForms even), completely absurd and ridiculous database designs that weighed the whole project down, etc. In that perspective, style really isn't that important.

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[Martin ISDN]

the best

[Martin ISDN]

"The C Programming Language" 1st edition 1978 by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. it's absence of restrictions and it's generality. notable mentions "Foundations of Python Network Programming" 2004 by John Goerzen "The Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript" 2004 by Nicholas C. Zakas

[obermd]

I'd have to go with Charles Petzold's Windows (C) Programming book.

[Forogar]

This was one of the first programming books I ever bought.

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[Member 9311455]

K&R from decades gone by.

“If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes”

[Dan Neely]

Back in the office I have a half dozenish of them. Several are stacked under the non-height adjustable monitor I left there back in march (I liked my spare monitor at home better), and the other half were used to put my laptop screen at a similar height to my monitors (at home I'm using a 6-pack of Coke :-\ ).

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt