Ask HN: Books that improved your career? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Books that improved your career?

52 pointsjilles16 comments

Hello HN,

Recently I finished Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann. All I can say is I wish I read this years ago. I'm a software engineer and didn't know a lot of the things I learned from that book.

This got me thinking, what other books have I missed out on reading to advance my (software / tech) career?

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The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane. The premise of this book is that you can change your psychology to become more of a people person, by cultivating confidence, warmth and the ability to focus. It was recommended by someone on Hacker News six or seven years ago and I wish I remembered who it was so I could thank them. This book changed my life more than any other.

Apprenticeship Patterns by Adewale Oshineye and Dave Hoover: A set of "design patterns" for your career as a software engineer. I read this relatively late on, when my career was in a bit of a rut, and I credit it for giving me the motivation and the tools to get out of that rut. I wish I'd found it earlier.

Other brilliant non-technical books: The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier, Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Mastering Communication At Work by Jon Wortmann and Ethan Becker, Mindset by Carol Dweck, Drive by Daniel Pink, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

Some brilliant books focussing a bit more on tech and code craft: Growing Object Oriented Software, Guided by Tests ("The GOOS Book") by Nat Pryce and Steve Freeman, Refactoring by Martin Fowler, Clean Code and Clean Architecture by Bob Martin.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

If you remember the date roughly you may find it here.

Many thanks. I hadn't realised how good the Algolia search on HN is. I'm still not confident that I've found the one but maybe I've narrowed it down a bit!

Pragmatic Programmer (importance of plain text) and How to Solve it (set of logical steps to get to grips with an otherwise overwhelming problem / situation).

Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns was the book that made me fall in love with software engineering. Perhaps a little dated now though.

Head First Design Patterns - I never grokked any of the patterns from the GoF book, but this one 'clicked' for me, if you can get past the cutesy presentation.

Peopleware - Shows importance of focusing on people, rather than the tech, as this is often the main cause of project failure in the software realm (and perhaps others).

"Coders at Work"[1] - a series of enjoyable and varied interviews with seasoned software developers. It features a mix of different styles of programming, types of project, and challenges encountered (technical, organizational, and collaborative).

[1] - https://codersatwork.com/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27636743

I did look for a similar thread but couldn't find it... That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

"Summa Technologiae" by Stanislaw Lem. It's the book about everything existing, possible and impossible too. For me it gives motivation to learn new, think about something new, try to find limits of what I already know.

"Mathematician's Apology" by G.H.Hardy. IDK why exactly this book (essay?) influenced me. I'm not a mathematician but I certainly found something that touches me.

"ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham. I did not became a lisper because of that but it helped me to came out of my cave. I considered myself an experienced programmer but that was something about "other" programming. I remember the feeling that I had a secret magical weapon in my hands.

"Programming Erlang" by Joe Armstrong. This book is not about Erlang mainly but about ideas and conceptions behind Erlang. Actor model, messaging, "let it fail", "happy path" - all that influenced me a lot.

"Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modelling" by Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross. The book about how to make data clean, inambigious and easy to understand.

I’m still relatively early in my career, but I’ve greatly enjoyed The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/97814...) as a way to learn more about mentorship, leadership, and management in tech.

Good To Great - https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0...

DOM Enlightenment - https://www.amazon.com/DOM-Scripting-Design-JavaScript-Docum...

Definitive XML Schema - https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-XML-Schema-Charles-Goldfar...

I am a better developer because of building my thinking about software around a deeper appreciation of data structures setting goals by focusing on personal considerations of ethics.

Books that have improved me but not my career:

Principles - https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Ray-Dalio-audiobook/dp/B07...

Lots and lots of fiction.

It's been a few years, but I got a lot out of Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky. It helped me adopt a professional attitude toward how I built software and worked in teams. If you want to save some money, most of the book is taken from posts on his blog.

As a side note, I feel like I need to revisit Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I got almost nothing out of it the first time I read it but people on HN keep recommending as this absolute game-changing gem.

I think probably because it pulls a lot of disparate information into a single place. It all felt pretty familiar as I have a long background of relation and transactional systems but it was nice to have the overall picture. It doesn't go into a huge amount of depth about any particular area, but it would be a great overview or refresher for an interview as a system architect/designer.

It will take a lot more than books to help my career.

I've read Getting to Yes, The Coaching Habit, and Never Split the Difference. They seemed to have decent information.

Curious what you learned from DDIA that you wish you knew years ago.

The Tao of programming and the 4 hour work week

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