Thursday, December 6, 2012

30 things #21 - Read 15 Software Engineering Books

So this is what I get for putting together my list of 30 things without looking fully at all of my supplemental sources, like http://www.noop.nl/2008/06/top-100-best-software-engineering-books-ever.html.  Apparently, there's only 75 and I'd need to download some pdf to get the rest.  Not sure I want to do that.  That may make things more difficult, since there's a chance I'd already read a few of those last 25, but oh well.  I read way fewer of these than I initially thought when I set this goal, but we'll call this one a stretch and we'll see how far I get. 

This goal is important to me because as I do much less coding now than I used to.  I'm transitioning into more of a project manager role and I really love it, but there's definitely some skills I've noticed that I just don't have and other skills that I learned about in school but have never applied.  I'm also realizing the longer I'm in the real world that there are a lot more different methodologies than I was ever exposed to in school, and I'd love to get more in depth exposure to paradigms other than agile and waterfall. 

Here's what I've read from the list so far:
  1. 1 Steve McConnell Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
  2. 28 Thomas H. Cormen, etc.  Introduction to Algorithms, Second Edition
  3. 20 Karl E. Wiegers  Software Requirements (2nd Edition)
  4. 64 Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman  Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition 
  5. 56 Grady Booch  Unified Modeling Language User Guide, The (2nd Edition)
  6. 30 Martin Fowler UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language (3rd Edition)
Here's the things I plan to read, in approximate order, plus some extras:
  1. 9 Frederick P. Brooks  The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
  2. 7 Joel Spolsky  Joel on Software
  3. 12 Alistair Cockburn, Writing Effective Use Cases
  4. 2 Elisabeth Freeman, etc   Head First Design Patterns 
  5. 14 Steve McConnell  Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
  6. 3 Steve McConnell  Rapid Development 
  7. 15 Mike Cohn  User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
  8. 16 (I'm counting this one as three) Donald E. Knuth  The Art of Computer Programming, The, Volumes 1-3 Boxed Set (2nd Edition)
  9. 6 Robert C. Martin  Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns and Practices 
  10. 8 Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (2nd Edition)
  11. 11 Mike Cohn  Agile Estimating and Planning
  12. 23 Gary McGraw  Software Security: Building Security In
  13. 25 Tom DeMarco  The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management 
  14. 34 Jim Highsmith  Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products
  15. 21 Craig Larman  Applying UML and Patterns (3rd Edition)
  16. 35 Scott Berkun  Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management 
  17. 46 Alistair Cockburn  Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams 
  18. 47 Steve McConnell  Software Project Survival Guide 
  19. 48 Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister  Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects 
  20. 54 Andy Oram, Greg Wilson  Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think 
  21. 67 Johanna Rothman  Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management 
  22. 75 Edward Yourdon  Death March (2nd Edition)

Have suggestions for books that should be on this list instead?  I'd love to hear them.  I'm definitely open to suggestions.

1 comment:

  1. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder is a great novelization of the development process, probably similar to The Deadline. I read it years ago.

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