Tag: books

Book List – Update January 2022

Jeroen

Ten years ago I started a book list, and in 2014 I provided an update. After some years of radio silence I’ve updated it once more: check out my Book List Page! And let me tell you a bit about the diff between then and now in this post.

First up, here’s a quick glance of the current list:

Screenshot of 2022 Book List covers of recommended books. Total 20 covers a bit blurred together, some jumping out because of their cover (e.g. "Don't Make Me Think", "Culture Map", "Death March", "Influence", "TED Talks").

I’ve reorganised the list once more. Shown above is my current list of “Recommended” books. These books more or less follow these guidelines:

  • I’ve read them, and enjoyed them thoroughly;
  • I’ve learned something from them;
  • They are directly or indirectly helpful for a software developer (or related);
  • They are important to read, for one reason or another;
  • They’re timeless, at least to a degree.

All of those books are also described with a mini-review for each. Some of the reviews dating back from 2014 or earlier. Some of them written just now, for the updated list.

My Book List also has two extra categories. First, there’s “Recommended, with caveat“: books I think are (usually) good to read, if you know the caveat. Then finally there’s a list of books I’ve read and I have not regretted doing so, but they are not on my “top” list: “Good, but not great“.

Curious to know when my next major update to my book list is forthcoming? So am I!

Finishing Bieb – Prelude

Jeroen

I will finish version 1.0 of Bieb in 2015!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You know that awkward feeling you get, when you’ve committed to some idea, merely by expressing it out loud or putting it in writing, and you can’t get yourself to do it? Yeah, “guilt” of some sort. I know, I get that too. I’ve had this for some time now, because I publicly stated I’d finish things.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion There’s a fantastic book on the subject which explains in detail how you should let rational thoughts trump previously stated intentions. I have applied this advice to my own situation, and rationally evaluated my publicly stated intention of finishing Bieb before doing anything else.

So here are the facts I gathered:

  1. I haven’t posted for 5 months, and I feel bad about that, because I’ve had ideas and things I wanted to post about.
  2. Hunting for a possible new job took a lot of time (I wasn’t even sure whether I should be looking for one), giving me a reasonable excuse not to work on a “big” pet project like Bieb.
  3. More recently, having found a new job, I’ve been spending almost all my free time studying new technologies I’ll be using soon. This is a very reasonable excuse to postpone blogging and pet projects.
  4. I’ve been tempted to start off new pet projects, but didn’t dare because I felt it would’ve been Bieb’s death sentence.
  5. The Windows Azure dashboard overwhelmed me. I want and perhaps even need to use it for rolling out Bieb, and it’s probably great, but wanting to do everything right the first time around doesn’t combine well with how extensive it is.
  6. I’m going to try out speaking at small events by giving a Lightning Talk at the next DomCode meetup, which takes away time from other hobbies like blogging and pet projects.
  7. I really, really, want to actually finish a 1.0 version of Bieb.

Okay, I was lying. Those were not “facts I gathered”. Those were thoughts, more or less chronologically ordered. And they can be summarized as:

  1. I want to give up on Bieb.
  2. I have all sorts of excuses for at least postponing it.
  3. But wait: I do not want to give up on Bieb!

So, ratio tells me: ignore wanting to give up, postpone finishing it for a reasonable while, and then finish it. Basically, I’m publicly restating my intention of finishing it, this time even attaching a deadline.

I will finish version 1.0 of Bieb in 2015!

You can hold me to that promise. I know I will.

Book List – Update May 2014

Jeroen

Almost two years ago I posted about starting a book list. So I did, and today I also took some time updating my Book List Page.

Books "A-List" per 2014-05-11

The list was growing, so I divided it into three groups. Shown above are 10 book covers from the “A List”: books which I loved reading and would highly recommend. The “B-List” are books that were well worth my time, yet aren’t directly recommended for one reason or another. The “C-List” are books I’ve read, but I’d recommend against picking them up for one reason or another.

A shout-out goes to my friend and colleague who’s been solid in providing recommendations (as well as lending me physical copies); he’s accountable for about half of the books on my A-List.

I’m in doubt what to read or do next though. Some things I’m considering:

  • Either one of the “Seven X in Seven Weeks” series (programming languages and/or databases).
  • Something about Java and/or a new book on programming for Android.
  • Anything like “PHP The Good Parts”, if it’s out there. (with topics like OO, Unit Testing, Dependency Injection, etc.)

On the other hand, I might also stick with some hobby programming or Pluralsight courses for now.

Of course I was hoping writing this post would help me figure out the question of what to do next. No luck so far though.

Ah well, the Right Thing to do will come to me with time, I guess.

Book List

Jeroen 1 Comment

Okay, I’ll admit it: I love making lists. The Pragmatic ProgrammerI’m one of those people that can make a list of things to do, and add one or two things I’ve already done, just so I can enjoy that feeling you get when you check something off the to-do-list. Do you recognize that feeling?

For books I know there’s wildly popular sites like Goodreads, to keep a list of things to read, get suggestions, and so on. I wanted something simpler, and something I have control over. So I decided to put it up on my blog as a page, just like all the (other?) hipsters with blogs. Not so much a reading list to tell others what they should read, but more a track record where I can quickly look up things I’ve read before.

The book that inspired me for this reading list (shown in the image) is The Pragmatic Programmer, amongst others. Who knows; perhaps this post will inspire others to (re)start a reading list as well?

Want to know what I have been reading? Check out my book list.

Stack Exchange Challenge

Jeroen 7 Comments

My new hobby: the great Stack Exchange sites.

In the 90’s most of my questions on software development were either answered by friends and family, trial and error, or books. I’ve always loved reading books on this topic. Most of my books have some particular animal on the cover, from the company with a man on a mission. In addition to books, the new millenium lured me to the Google Groups on C#. It seems at the time of writing this only a “new” Google Groups exists, which is a good thing: even though I enjoyed reading and posting there very much, the spam drove me (and many others) away.

Of course, just Google Search remained a very decent source for answers to development questions. In recent years, the search results have slowly started to point to one particular site: Stack Overflow. The various interesting sister sites quickly grabbed my attention.

I can highly recommend looking at the sites they have, and joining some of the discussions. Overall, the communities seemed very friendly to me as long as you put effort and thought in your questions and answers. Personally, I’m seriously considering to set myself up for a challenge and investigate one site a time, with perhaps a blog post on my findings. Now where shall I begin?