Engdy's Journal: Books on Programming

I get asked once in a while what books I recommend for various programming topics, and when I'm asked, I never remember. Here's a list of books I've either read and liked, or I've heard others like.

Note that I tend to shy away from those "Learn Umpity Scrunch in 20 Days" and similar books. All that I've looked at were shallow fluff.

• C
  • Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language
  • Al Kelley's A Book on C (I haven't read this one, only heard it recommended)
• C++
  • Scott Meyer's Effective C++ and More Effective C++
  • Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++ (free electronic book)
• Perl

  Pretty much anything in the O'Reilly catalog, including:

  • Larry Wall's Programming Perl
  • Sriram Srinivasan's Advanced Perl Programming
  • Tom Christiansen's Perl Cookbook

  and anything by Lincoln Stein, including:

  • Network Programming with Perl
  • Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm

  and let's not omit Damian Conway:

  • Object Oriented Perl

  Can you tell I like Perl?

• Java
  • Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java
• Software development process

  Anything by Steve McConnell, including:

  • Code Complete
  • Rapid Development
• Unix
  • W. Richard Steven's Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment