I'm currently speeding through and enjoying, "JavaScript Application Design: A Build First Approach" by Nicolas Bevacqua.
The only downside to this fantastic book is that it was written in 2015 and doesn't (so far) use ES6. But it's a comprehensive JavaScript book I wish was recommended more to beginners.
For reference, taking a build first approach means dedicating a good chunk of the book towards:
- understanding and creating build tasks
- truly exploring environment workflows
- building out continuous deployments
- writing modular, easy to test code
This is counter to most intro books that focus on JavaScript syntax and standalone concepts.
Top comments (22)
I believe it was this one: Professor Frisby's Mostly Adecuate Guide to Functional Programming.
It explains functional programming concepts using javascript. Sometimes is fun, sometimes it gives you a headache but it's always a good book.
Sounds like one to read
Something I'm noticing is that the best tech books are the ones you want to get through quickly, because the content is that good. But at the same time are excited to return to
The last tech book what I read is “ java concurrency in practice”. I guess it’s quite important book for every java dev.
Do you find yourself reading a lot of tech books? I started off mainly relying on video tutorials, but I'm at the point where I want to understand why things code works the way it does
If I have a choice between reading a book or article and watching a video, I prefer to read because I read much faster than I can hear. I usually read at 80-90 pages per hour if I read in my native language and 40-50 pages per hour if I read in English, and that's times faster even if I turn on the acceleration on video.
I don't read a lot tech books, but reading the documentation and articles allows me to find answers to all the questions I have while writing the code.
I've honestly been tearing through my book backlog during quarantine:
From most-recent to least recent:
5/5 I absolutely adore this book. I first read it in college and when I found out the anniversary edition was coming out I actually pre-ordered it, something I never do! I also hardly re-read books and again, I re-read this one.
It's practically at the top of any of my recommendations for programmers. Whatever stage you're at and whatever software you're writing, this book is the cream of the crop and provides pragmatic (ha!) advice for code, your project, and your career.
2. The DevOps Handbook
4/5 I'd only recommend this to senior engineers, CTOs, or software engineers at a "non-tech" company. Nearly all of the practices in here are already being followed at major software companies, so it was kind of a drag to read and just say "oh yeah, we already do that." But if you find writing software is absolute torture at your company, then maybe this is for you. Not recommended for beginners.
3. Eloquent JavaScript
5/5 When I learned JavaScript pre-ES6 it was considered "barely" a programming language and one that you only learned enough of to get your website to do what you wanted with Dojo or jQuery.
Now JS has eaten the web, mobile apps, backend, and more. I see the current wave of JS full-stack engineers and knew I had to do more than just dust off my old copy of JavaScript: The Good Parts.
EloquentJS is an amazing programming book and an especially great JS book. You'd be hard pressed to find a book that fully covers the fundamentals of programming, and gives a comprehensive showcasing of the JS language, while giving practical and fun projects along the way.
You can find some of my other suggested reads here: My Suggested Reads
The last books I finished were Kubernetes in Action and Programming Kubernetes. The first helped get me familiar with how Kubernetes works and the latter helped me understand how folks extend and develope against the Kubernetes API.
Currently I'm working through Designing Data-Intensive Applications cause I've heard it's a pretty good and practical distributed systems book. I'm not very far yet, though.
I read Genomics In the Cloud with great interest, because I am working in this area. Also because I was one (of the many) tech reviewers and I was eager to see the 'final form' of the book.
Righting Software by Juval Lowy
If you can make it through the intense egomania and talking down to absolutely everyone, there's some really really good stuff in there.
Also, ok, I still haven't finished it, it takes a while to absorb.
Yes, it is utmost necessary to cut through the egomania. But the guy is actually quite humble. He's not talking down to absolutely everyone. He's talking down to the practices of absolutely everyone. And he has all the right to do so, since you hardly can prove him wrong on his practices.
It's just like Ignaz Semmelweis had to endure opposition by reknown doctors for bad practices, in the end he was right.
Well kinda except you also have statements from Juval (I don't remember if it was in the book or an interview) such as that his method is just about the only software architecture ever done right and even then few people can do it. That's not exactly provably wrong but it's not provably right either, it's just kind of a useless thing to say. He does that a lot and it's a real reason why I think some people can't and won't get into it.
He also has a nasty habit of misstating the position of others. While he doesn't do much as reference domain driven design in the book, he does elsewhere and hit students do as well. Instead he beats around the bush talking about domain modelling and completely butchers the very idea. The whole thing is dumb as DDD ubiquitous language concept is useful regardless, and the rest fits in very nicely within Juval's framework as a way of defining the innards of a component (which honestly is a way better take on the bounded context concept).
Anyways, the book itself has solid ideas if you can push through so I still recommend it.
Thanks, George! I'll keep that in mind. So far though, it sounds like an interesting book
I'm about half way through the Rust book. It's well written and provides enough detail for any developer to understand the language. doc.rust-lang.org/book/
You're right. It's also laid out very cleanly
This semester, I didn't code at all and had classes about engineering. Thus the technical book I read and loved the most was Control Systems Engineering by Norma S. Nise. I really like it and there is a ton of really interesting stuff that will in the big picture, help me integrate the hardware and software of system engineering.
I re-read the book extreme programming explained. It's incredible how relevant this book still is. If you work on a team of more than one person (most teams) you should read this book.
Clean Coder was my last technical book read.
It was a pleasure to read it since it contains lots of short stories of Robert C. Martin through his path to become a 'well-rounded' developer with lots of good advice along the way.
The last one I read was Functional programming in C++. If you are a C++ developer and interested in functional concepts it's a must to read. But even if you are not interested that much in FP, the parts on STL, ranges, templates, and algebraic data types are worth the days/week you'll spend reading it and for sure will help you to become a better C++ programmer.
Eloquent JavaScript 🙂
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems
Do RFCs count? If so, I was skimming RFC 6455 on the Websocket Protocol. But other than that I think it was the Cisco CCNA Textbook.
Good to know! I'll check it out