The following book recommendations cover what I have found to be the essentials of any good programmer:
- Creativity
- Good
methodology
- Plenty of experience
Creativity is an essential ingredient
in all IT endeavours, from designing systems of hardware to programming
applications. We all use it but sometimes under extreme stress (the ubiquitious
limited budget and time constraints), burn out or reaching the preriphery of our
creative output we need a new source of inspiration. One book I highly recommend
is Cracking Creativity by Michael Michalko. This is a very straight
forward and easy read with some surprising techniques in opening new avenues of
creativity for solving IT problems.
Object Oriented design. How often have
you heard people pay lip-service to the method only to find their work contains the
hydra of code duplication, workarounds and coding soliloquies that put Shakespeare
to shame? I found a book in the year 2000 that offers a full object-oriented method
explanation with exercises and examples that is a must for any serious
programmer. Designing Object-Oriented Software by Rebecca
Wirfs-Brock et al, takes you from the description of objects to providing
diagrammatical tools, methods of induction and investigation and examples, giving
you the groundwork to design robust responsiblity-driven systems and say
yes to the projects that others have to turn down.
Your
knowledge and experience are your most important professional assets (Hunt &
Thomas 2000:12). The following book I cannot recommend highly enough.
The Pragmatic Programmer, from Journeyman to Master by
Andrew Hunt and David Thomas is packed full of great ideas and concepts annexed
to a vigorous IT philosophy. This book encapsulates years of experience and
knowledge with the latest IT concepts (Agile Programming) to make you a better
programmer.
All of these books put me at the top of the pile of
programmers in my field of programming and from others to whom I have
recommended these books I have received very encouraging feedback. If you wish
to benefit from these book recommendations the details for each are as follows:
- Wirfs-Brock, Rebecca., Wilkerson, Brian., Wiener, Lauren.,
(1990)"Designing Object-Oriented Software", P T R Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey.
- Hunt, Andrew., Thomas, David., (2000) "The Pragmatic
Programmer", Addison-Wesley, New York.
- Michalko, Michael., (2001) "Cracking
Creativity, The Secrets of Creative Genius", Ten Speed Press, California
Duane Hennessy
Senior Software Engineer and Systems Architect.
Bandicoot Software
Tropical Queensland, Australia
(ABN: 33 682 969 957)
Your own personal library of code snippets: http://www.bandicootsoftware.com.au