Master The Professional Programmer Thinking Style Through Books
Learn to act like a professional programmer by learning from the best
One of the most effective ways of learning is by surrounding yourself with the best. Even though we may never be able to spend long periods of time with a professional, we may gain insights from their experience using the books they have written.
By learning the best practices, principles, and patterns from the professionals, we can avoid repeating the common mistakes. As we save time when gaining experience, we can use this precious time for discovering the newly emerging patterns rather than fighting with the existing ones.
Here in this article, I have listed the books that are related to the attitude of a programmer. By learning the patterns of programmer thinking habits, we can greatly ease the way we solve any problem both in programming and in our career.
As the book prefaces describe their intention quite clearly, I let the books describe themselves.
The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery
Programming is about trying to make the future less painful. It’s about making things easier for our teammates. It’s about getting things wrong and being able to bounce back. It’s about forming good habits. It’s about understanding your toolset. Coding is just part of the world of being a programmer, and this book explores that world. [1]
The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
This book is about software professionalism. It contains a lot of pragmatic advice in an attempt to answer questions, such as
• What is a software professional?
• How does a professional behave?
• How does a professional deal with conflict, tight schedules, and unreasonable managers?
• When, and how, should a professional say “no”?
• How does a professional deal with pressure? [2]
The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride
Software Craftsmanship proposes a very different mindset for developers and companies. Although Software Craftsmanship is not a methodology, it strongly recommends the adoption of certain technical practices and disciplines, mostly the ones defined by Extreme Programming.
With a great synergy with Agile and Lean principles, Software Craftsmanship promises to take our industry to the next level. Professionalism, technical excellence, and customer satisfaction are the main focus of Software Craftsmanship. One of its main focuses is changing the perceptions that software developers are like workers on a production line and that software projects can be run as if running a factory.
How can we become better developers? How can we deliver better software projects? With real stories and practical advice for developers and companies, this book is relevant to all software developers and every professional directly involved in a software project. [3]
The Passionate Programmer
I hate the feeling that my presence doesn’t really matter and that the world would have been exactly no different in a meaningful way if my work hadn’t been done. To become remarkable, you have to believe that you’re making a significant dent in the universe.
When I wasn’t making a dent at work, it spilled over to my personal life too. When I didn’t feel like I was having an impact during office hours, it was that much harder to muster the effort to have an impact afterward.
To me, leading a remarkable career is the best way I know to kick start that same desire for leading a remarkable life — one where you don’t just become a better and more valuable worker, but you become a better human too.
That’s why this book is so important. It’s not just about making better widgets and feeling secure in your job. It’s just as much about developing the skills and sensibilities for leading a more rewarding life filled with many remarkable aspects, with work just being one of them. [4]
— David Heinemeier Hansson
Becoming a Better Programmer
Becoming a Better Programmer aims to help programmers at any level improve. That’s a grand claim, but there’s always something we can learn, and always room for improvement, no matter how experienced a programmer you are.
The topics covered in this book run the whole gamut of the software developer’s life:
- Code-level concerns that affect how you write individual lines of code, as well as how you design your software modules.
- Practical techniques that will help you work better.
- Illustrations of effective attitudes and approaches to adopt that will help you become both super effective and well grounded.
- Procedural and organisational tricks and tips that will help you flourish whilst you are incarcerated in the software factory.
There’s no particular language or industry bias here. [5]
Related
References
[1] The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition : Foreword
[2] The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers : Preface
[3] The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride : Preface
[4] The Passionate Programmer : Foreword
[5] Becoming a Better Programmer : Introduction
