Software Development Books

This book is fantastic, I own three editions.

But the Kindle edition is a pale shadow of the print edition. Purchase the printed edition first, use the Kindle edition only as a portable reference. Expect your reading speed to be much slower on the Kindle edition than in the print edition.

The Kindle display is too narrow for the code, causing lines to wrap at inconvenient places. Code is mostly readable, but the line wraps render the code less readable than the print edition.

The Kindle edition uses the same serifed font for both code and prose, all in black. The printed edition uses a serif font for prose, and uses a sans-serif font to differentiate code. The print edition uses color to identifies important code.

Comparing the two editions gives you deeper appreciation for the art of typesetting.

Photos comparing Kindle and printed formatting at
http://gallery.mac.com/ziggr#100056

The Scott Meyers books were *the* reason I bought a Kindle: these books were in my backpack on the day I ordered my Kindle. "I could carry a 10oz Kindle instead of a stack of books? Sold!" Even with the Kindle's limited formatting capabilities, I'm glad to finally have them in a Kindle edition.

This book must be required reading for anyone developing in C++. I count this book as essential as Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language"; these two books are a necessity.

Mr. Stroustrup's book could be considered a technical reference to the C++ language. This book I consider as a technical reference for how to use the C++ language.

The book was well written. I found the book to be easy to read and the index to be exhaustive enough for the book to be used as a quick reference.

Is this a great book? I have been asking myself that question ever since I found out that Scott Meyers does not write (or has not written for a long time) production code in C++. With that said, book is a great theoretical treatise on how to make your C++ code better but it is not a "cookbook" which will be immediately useful in day to day tasks. This is not necessarily a bad thing; such approach will encourage deeper understanding of issues at hand and that will lead to better code.

A good book in an informal language to take a look at the most importance topics to avoid many common errors during the programming in C++. Widely used in the industry.

This is a great book which covers a lot of useful topics for every C++ professional. I have been programming in C++ for a while so some of the topics Scott Mayers discussed were already familiar but I still picked up a lot from this book. From a beginner to intermediate programmer, this is a must have. Advanced programmers probably have this book already (or its previous editions). Otherwise, if you bought this in order to learn something new then you are not really "advanced", are you?

This book assumes that you already used C++ and understand its fundamentals. Scott's goal is not to teach the fundamentals but to advice readers on how to use the language effectively - generating good, efficient, re-usable, portable code. On this goal, he was successful. Its pretty much like when I was learning Japanese. I understood the fundamentals and word translations but in order to effectively communicate in that language, I had to be familiar with proper sentence construction, various formalities (some words are not appropriate for certain settings or people) and word dynamics as well. In a sense, this book (or Scott) is your sensei to good C++ programming.

Some more suggested reading to complement Scott Mayer's series:
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
and
Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied (C++ In-Depth Series)

Code complete is the right title for this book. Sadly most people find it extremely hart to read it. Its great as a reference but reading it word for word is as interesting as watching grass grow. Don't get me wrong. This is a great book. Everyone should at least hold it for once. But do not try to read it as a book. The first 300 pages will be boring. When the actual code chapters begin it gets better but still tends to be tedious.

A great book for beginners but a little boring read for advanced users.

When I bought this book, I couldn't believe all the 5 star ratings in the reviews. But, now that I've finished it, I have to agree with them. Simply put, this is probably the best computer-related book I've read. In the book's 850 pages, I found a grand total of five minor problems: one was grammatical, two were typographical and two were minor disagreements with how some things were presented. All trivial. Content-wise, if the universities would teach this material and if programmers would follow the methodologies contained in the book, the world of software would be far, far better off. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book and rate it an Excellent 5 stars out of 5.

This was a great book both for me and my team. I've been in the software industry for many years. I started building a team of developers and needed an easy way to bring novice and experienced programmers together on a similar set of standards. This book provided us with the perfect framework from which to start our team. We've developed several major projects using the principles in this book and have experienced a great deal of success.

One warning, the book gets a bit tedious after the first half. If you're looking to improve your C programming skills, it gets really detailed into pointers and other fun, or not, stuff. Also, the examples are in VB.NET...but you still get the point.

If you're an experienced software developer or a newbee in the world of commercial computer programming this book will give a good kick in the right direction. Steve McConnel will keep you hooked by mixing the right guiding concepts with real-life knowledge and examples.

for all programmers. Shall I say Application Developers? Software Engineers? Whatever the title is, programming jobs are alive and well! This book provides a solid foundation. It is too bad very few American students are interested in this profession.

The average students are all studying business marketing. The good students are studying finance.

At Harvard University, they do not teach Accounting. The best ones, study Economics. There are only 21 students studying Computer Science at Harvard. Yet, parents are paying $220,000 to Harvard and other Ivy League. Truly amazing!

Is there anyway we can change this trend?

Thick Oracle book which is intended for developers who might need to understand the Oracle internals and administration parts besides writing SQL. It's useful for them working in other database also as the general database concept is simlar. Developers can now have more DBA knowledges after reading before on-going performing some DBA task.

Gr8 stuff for all the Oracle ppl.

A true masterpiece, and a great way to learn Oracle concepts. No more to say.

I have been an Oracle DBA for about six years and this book is still the one I turn to when looking for deeper insight into tough Oracle problems. The author recently published a new book on 9i and 10g and that one is also quite excellent. When it comes to analysis and clear writing style, no one can beat Tom Kyte for excellence. Highly recommended.

I bought this book on cheap clearance after the original publisher went out of business -- the best $12 I ever invested. Remembering even 10% of this book makes you better than 90% of Oracle developers, modelers and architects. Mr. Kyte's real world experience and reliance on solid examples instead of folklore makes this light-years ahead of any other Oracle book; it's the only Oracle book I re-read regularly. If you can afford only one Oracle book, this is it. And you may not need any other.

Great book on managing people and their space in a technical environment. A must for technical managers.

Nice reminder on what should we do during project.
We all know these things, but often we forget on them.

I was surprised at how relevant this book still is more than 20 years after its initial publication. Depressingly, it seems the authors' suggestions have not been followed by many employers. I recently changed jobs and am in a cubicle for the first time. I have been struggling to think in my cubicle, and this book confirms my suspicion that it is my work space and not my brain that is causing the problem. Even when I am not being interrupted, I am always slightly on edge wondering when I will be interrupted. The down side of the book is that the solutions and suggestions for improvements are quite difficult to implement. I just finished the book tonight - I wonder if I will do anything differently tomorrow because of this book. Probably not - maybe the fun part of the book is grumbling about our common work situations.

Quick enjoyable read. Some interesting commentary on team dynamics and the social problems teams encounter. I wish more solutions/suggestions were offered.

I expected the book to contain practical advice. The book covered many undesirable situations and business settings. There were no recommendations made on how to improve a bad situation. The book merely reported on the bad environment. If you are in an unpleasant work environment and want to know there may be others worse off then you, you may like this book.

All the features of WPF are explained here, with samples and visual codes for your reference. I decided to buy this book and other about Blend 2, but most of my doubts I solved with this edition.
Great book from beginners to experts.

Hey, a programming book in full colour!! WPF Unleashed really does introduce the concepts and details of WPF programming in a clear and easy manner, and Adam Nathan is to be commended for his efforts. Anyone wanting to learn (more) about WPF will benefit from this book.

This is a well written, well structured book.

Full color with good examples and covers a good range of details.

What can I say.. I was looking for a book about WPF. I saw many, and many until I found that one. Then I stopped looking for more :)

On first opening this book you are struck by the beautiful full colour pictures and syntax-highlighted code samples. [Though the experience was slightly marred by the tears and damage to the front cover which occurred during shipping, as was also the case with another book in the order.]

I did a quick flip through and thought... "Beautiful presentation, but the content looks a bit over-simplified. Maybe all the reviewers were seduced by the full colour pages."

Then I started working my way through the book. I was blown away. The writing style is simple and to the point. But it doesn't lack depth. There are indications of the little things that are likely to catch you out, as well as discussions of some pretty advanced topics too.

So, Yay! The content of the book was just as good as the way it was presented, if not better. My only criticism is that in some cases there could have been more code examples.

On the other hand this would probably have made the book very bloated and not as useful as a reference book. There's enough information to point you in the right direction, and from there google will get you to all the code samples you need.

So let O'Reilly do the cookbook style books with lots of code snippets. They do that so well. This book takes a novel approach, and it works brilliantly!

This book is the perfect example of a good "Computer" book: It teaches what it needs to teach in a way you understand.
It covers all the important stuf like BSTRs, Smart Pointers, DCOM, TLBs, IDLs and other buzz-like acronyms.
I used it as an only reference for learning COM and I was doing complex COM projects within weeks. Andrew Troelsen is 'the man'!

Best regards,

I NEVER write reviews; however Mr. Troelsen for this effort has earned it. He has written by far one of the best written tech books on C programming I've ever read, and for COM/ATL this book makes writing interfaces for VB both understandable and accessible. Coverage and background is sufficient, and equally important for those who don't do this every day for a living, the depth in setting up projects in Visual Studio is also there so one unfamiliar with technical setup issues involved in setting up an ATL COM project are enabled to create their own. All I can say is well done, please keep up the good work, very much appreciated. Looking forward to your next releases.

Sincerely,
Dr. Mathew G. Pelletier, Research Engineer

Describe low level COM and then ATL internals and interfaces which can let reader easily understand such complex mechanism. Though the book is a little bit old, it can still be served as a good reference.

Apart from the fact that so many customers gave 5 stars to this book, there's another indicator of its value: it looks like nobody wants to resell it after they are done reading it. I, for one, intend to keep it for reference...

I've been programming in C# for a few years, and now I needed to learn COM. This book was the best tech manual I've ever read.

My recommendation is: if you need to learn COM, do not waste your money on any other book until you've read this one.

My current project at work required me to learn COM. I purchased several books to assist in the learning, and I must say that this book is absolutely indispensible, both as an instructional medium and as a reference. I highly recommend this book to anyone needing to learn about COM.

What's inside? It starts with a basic intro to COM, useful (dare I say it) for managers as well as the developer to get the big picture. Then it goes into a discussion of ATL and design patterns. This second section is incredibly important since ATL is for COM as STL is for C++. It finishes off with some of the more advanced areas of study in COM. Only a few advanced topics are not covered (custom marshalling for one), but considering it starts from an assumed ignorance of COM, it does reach a good level of detail.

Who am I? I studied computer science in University. However, I had never previously developped on Windows. I am primarily a C++ programmer, with some experience with Java. Knowledge of C++ (I would say more than just a familiarity) should be a prereq. to reading, but that's about it. It introduces most OO topics you need in the first chapters that most experienced developers can probably skip.

I bought the first edition of this book called Programming Windows Presentation Foundation (AKA Avalon) at the PDC in 2005 and read it completely on the plane home.

When I heard the second edition was released I didn't think much would have changed, but this is even better than the first edition. It's twice as big and covers all major (and not so major) topics in WPF (inc. an introduction to 3D and Silverlight).

I think this book will proof to be for WPF what Programming Windows, Fifth Edition is for WIN32 programming.

This book is the most in depth resource into WPF i have seen. And not just that, it gets to the good stuff that you'll actually use in your code and not just filler or lists of properties that you can get from intelisense. The examples are extremely useful.

The other benefit of this book is that it doesn't just tell you how to do things, but why. This is incredibly helpful in finding the best solution to your specific problem.

Thanks guys! great book!
Ralph

I say to ignore those reviews because they do not refer to this book. This is the second edition published August 28, 2007 with 863 pages. Those reviews are based off of the first edition published nearly two years before (September 12, 2005) and with only 447 pages.

Using Amazon's 'Search inside this book' takes you to the 2005 edition also. That shows only 10 chapters while this edition has 17. Most of the negative comments from the 2 and 3 star reviewers seem to have been resolved.

The biggest strength of this book is that it focus on using WPF programatically, not just laying out XAML. This is extremely useful if you are writing an application for 3D data visualization or a database driven application. You get to learn to create event handlers, generate meshes... all programmatically. I also believe that this book is great, not just as a learning tool, but as a reference guide. It is the most comprehensive book on the subject and a must for the aspiring WPF developer.

If you just want to focus on XAML, however, I will have to recommend "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" by Adam Nathan.

As a software developer I've written tons of production-level code for many companies including Rockwell Automation, Compuware, MS.
And I found this book to be too shallow for a technical person like me.

[One can save money by simply downloading WPF SDK samples and learning them]

Can one design and implement a better than WPF framework after reading this book? Obviously not!

No wonder, the authors never developed significant portions of any known product/framework!

Also, my e-mail exchange with C. Sells indicates that he himself doesn't really understand WPF in depth.
(BTW, as a MS employee he has luxury of having access to WPF source code and symbols - he obviously didn't bother to do so)

Just a few examples:
-- Managed/Unmanaged transition, e.g. the MIL stuff
-- Lack of understanding the WPF control model
-- Lack of understanding the WPF text model
-- Just like in any other *shallow WPF book* [are there deep WPF books out there?] authors make no effort to scrutinize the existing framework (WPF). [Which is definitely far from being clean and nice]
-- WPF "GDI-free" claims are nonsense since WPF uses User32 and User32 and Gdi32 libs are tightly coupled.

With only a casual tinker in Dreamweaver split view under my belt starting out, I learned how to hand code XHTML and CSS with this book alone (well, and some web research here and there and CSS Mastery is an excellent follow up). It's written clearly and gives multiple solutions for each case, while explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each. I cannot recommend this book enough, as even after I finished it, it remains close by as an invaluable desk reference that I refer to here and there.

Web Standards Solutions is reasonably solid title that discusses the benefits and approaches of using web standards in the design of (X)HTML markup. CSS is also covered as a means to remove presentational elements from web page markup. Lists, tables, headings, hyperlinks, forms, quotations and layouts are all covered to a foundational level.

The information covered in the book is especially suited to new web site designers who are yet to understand these concepts. Web application developers - who might not focus their craft on the quality of their markup, would also benefit greatly. For others already possessing an basic understanding of semantic markup and presentation through CSS, the book might contain a few useful tips only.

Throughout each chapter the book doggedly follows a pattern that can become tedious. For each chapter, non-standards approaches are considered before the 'correct' standards based approach is shown. After this the 'extra credit' portion of the chapter provides practical applications of the given solution. Whereas the correct solution and extra credit sections are useful, the repetition of the defective non-standard approaches for in every chapter is sometimes repetitive and slightly contrived, and could be discussed more casually as required without dominating the format of every chapter.

Having said that, the book is easily read, has examples and practical applications, covers the breadth of the topic well and could certainly be used to bring anyone up to speed on the basics of standards-based approaches to the web page markup development.

This is an excellent book that all web designers should own. When I look at people's sites, I often validate them just out of curiosity, and it is so rare that I ever find a valid site. I always pay attention to validation, and this book just validates (for lack of a better term) my opinions on the importance of following web standards. This book is good for helping with workarounds for certain browsers (cough, IE) that don't support standards that most others do.

Through simple illistrations and small code snippets this book covers pretty much what one would need to know in order to create great web 2.0 sites.

This book is the 2nd one by Dan Cederholm that I bought and can be used as "Advanced Chapters" to his short but overall excellent "Bulletproof Web Design" (ISBN-10: 0321346939). These two combined will surely set your brains straight about standards-based HTML/CSS development.

It explains how to make your markup short. It shows why using purposeful HTML tags (such as "label") is preferred to using generic divs with classes. It destroys new and "hip" myth about tables being "taboo" for modern HTML.

If you want to know what is going on under the hood, thn this is THE book.
Every chapter is very in depth with good examples. Definite YES for the geek inside you. 5 Stars.

I love reading Richter's books. When you think that there's no room left for improvement you get a title like this one. Wow!
Where other books present the subject matter this one gives you knowledge. Improves on the previous one.
Covers new topics like generics or nullable types. Just can't wait to see what Richter will do with linq!

I'm more of a Java and Ruby developer, but I found this book fun to read anyway. It's a great read to understand how languages interact with core libraries and how it all fits together inside of a virtual runtime environment. Very well done.

The book is oriented toward experienced programmers. It provides an introduction to the CLR and describes some intermediate topics in detail. Advanced topics are mentioned, but the coverage of advanced topics (such as CLR hosting) is shallow.

If you are an experienced programmer who is new to the CLR and C#, this is a great text. If you already understand the CLR and are looking for more information about advanced techniques, this book is probably not for you.

Most of what needs to be said about this book has already been said. But I feel a need add my two cents, if only to toss another five stars out there.

Really, this one is an example of what a good technical book should be. It's style is both understandable and unpretentious and it covers topics with depth and clarity. The overall organization is such that it never seemed like that terms, ideas, and concepts were being used that had not been introduced previously. Reading this book was a true pleasue and I know I will be referring back to it many times.

The book provides a developer's view of the internals of the .Framework and its CLR. It's more than you need to know to hammer out a lot of code. But if you want to build really good apps - or just want to know what .NET is all about - buy the book, read it, and keep in at hand.

This book is one of the better collections of how-to's and practical applications I've read on Agile user stories. It mixes in just enough of the theory to understand the importance and distinctions of epics, stories, tasks, and spikes without overly focusing on them. Then, it uses real-world examples in common language to walk you through some of the messier implementations of Agile, and provides specific guidance on how to make things work in less than ideal situations. I found this book particularly helpful for me personally, as well as for one of our less experienced Scrum Master's at work.

I have seen other presentations and publications from this author and he really seems to know his stuff, plus it's really easy to read. I'm a consultant and trainer and find this to be an excellent reference. There are lots of examples and the book is very easy to read. You also don't have to be involved in Agile development to find this useful, as I also use the concepts for developing user roles and focusing on user goals as a primary function even in a Waterfall development world.

I'm pretty much allergic to any form of requirements documentation. Change control makes my skin itch, and big up front planning makes me vomit. But I also am not totally comfortable with winging it all the time. As a project manager, I need to get a sense of how big the project is, what are the pieces and parts, and how will the product be used. And I need it fast, flexible, and without much overhead. Oh yeah, don't forget I have to also be able to use it to plan iterations, drive development and testing, and report status. All without making comprehensive documentation more important than working software or processes and tools more important than individuals and interactions.

That's why I'm glad I discovered User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn. It is a short, practical explanation of how to plan, estimate, and execute an agile project with user stories. These lightweight requirements never get in the way or replace conversations with users and customers. Instead, they help you keep track of what you're going to build and serve as a reminder to talk to SME's about what they mean. You can use them to report status, to plan iterations, and to get an overview of the product's feature set.

I wholeheartedly endorse this book for all project or product managers.

Mike does a great job explaining user stories and agile principles. Very readable and even enjoyable. This book concerns itself mainly with the 'ideal' situation: brand new product development, and does not focus on other nuances such as improvements to existing products, customer-reported defects, validated environments. That's not a criticism, as this book isn't supposed to be the unabridged encyclopedia of user stories, but I plan to read some of Mike's other books... where, hopefully, he will cover such topics

As you'll read in other reviews this book does a great job of laying the foundation on how to implement XP as a development process using user stories, iterations, and other concepts used in XP.

Where the book goes a little overboard is with some drawn out stories and examples that could be cut down. In reality I think this book could almost have 1/3 less long and been a 5 star book.