Read Good Books to Be a Better Developer

Oren has published a list of his recommended reading and it reminded I wanted to write a post about this for some time. At the bottom on his post, Oren points to an observation that almost none of his books are on a specific technology. Let me come back to this point in a second.

Remember a picture of my stack of books from three years ago? As I look at my bookshelf now, I see hardly any of them left. At one point, I simply threw away those huge ADO.NET and ASP.NET volumes.

I have a nice library of the patterns books (GoF, Fowler, Kerievsky, Chen, etc), and a few MS AJAX books (gotta know your tools, after all). But the rest are along the lines of Don’t Make Me Think, Prioritizing Web Usability, Programming Erlang, Code Complete, Stop Stealing Sheep, Peopleware, Release It! (review coming), etc.

The time came when I noticed I was switching my focus from web standards topics—CSS, XHTML, JavaScript—to a much broader topic of usability. Usability is not about how this or that technology functions. It’s about how people function. The Microsoft camp pays little attention to the aspect of people. This is when I realized those thick volumes you see on the picture on the left weren’t helpful. They were putting tooling first.

That’s just wrong.

I also realized that to become a better developer you need to lay off of geek literature and read good books. Granted, you need to stay up to date. But try to strike up a conversation with a geek about anything outside of software. Seriously, try it.

What’s a good book? It depends on your mindset and world view. Read about typography—it affects people in powerful ways. Read about accessibility—gain appreciation for people with disabilities. Read about design—it’s about communication and problem solving. Read Peopleware and Release It!. Read Don’t Make Me Think so you don’t start or get yourself involved in religious debates.

My approach is to read one book pertaining to my industry, alternated with a non-geek title.

I usually rotate through three types of books -- 1) Industry related, 2) Technology specific, and 3) General business / personal development related. I also keep a book in each room of the house, so there's always one to continue no matter where I am.

Try to avoid simultaneous reading from each category, if possible. Your head may explode.

Next step, putting what I read into practice. Argh... there's a blog post for a book addict...

I completely agree. I think that with the way the internet has been shaped the technical side is beneficial but the business side is a must. I end reading through stacks of business books before I come the ones that as soon as you're done....you're starting it back over. Reading is essential to success (no matter what can be put on video, podcast, webinar) reading is a necessity.

A great one (tough to put down) is Made to Stick (heath) which does a wonderful job relating important concepts in todays fast moving marketing and business environment. The Last Tycoons is very inspirational and as for my geek side I end up just finding blogs and posts. There are often the most up-to-date and effective methods. I have not really found a good book that will hold my interest and still be accurate by the time I finish it. I am up for suggestions though.

Thank you for this one of a kind post. Hard to find this kind of quality!

Solutioneering. Coming up with great solutions, without a problem in sight.

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