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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional Authors: Andrew Hunt, David Thomas Rating: 5/5  Tip 15: Use Tracer Bullets to Find the Target. That's among 70 "tips" you'll get from Hunt and Thomas, and one of the most important. I used to think you had to plan everything ahead of time down to APIs and data structures and then go program it like an automaton. Both this book and _Extreme Programming_ by Beck explain why this is a flawed idea in the face of the plastic medium of software. You often don't know what you want, you'll often learn a lot by implementing the first module, or the customer may change their mind about what they want (especially after seeing early versions). I went from academia to a start-up, and this book was a very good outline of how to program in a real world setting. My boss, another former academic, also read it and loved it. You might not learn anything from this book if you're already an old hand at professional programming on a great team. Or maybe it'll just ring the I-knew-that-but-now-I-have-a-name-for-it bell. The discussion of rubber ducking is a good example (just nodding your head behind someone while they explain their code to you and debug it themselves). The discussion of the stone soup phenomenon is another case (read the book to see how it applies). My other favorites among the tips include: don't live with broken windows; make quality a requirements issue; don't repeat yourself; there are no final decisions (strongly related to tracer bullets); keep knowledge in plain text; use the power of command shells (but don't bother reading Neal Stephenson's book on the subject even if you love his other books as much as I do); use a single editor well; "select" isn't broken (think horses not zebras); design with contracts; test your estimates; design to test; test your software or your users will; test early. test often. test automatically; find bugs once; and finally, sign your work. (I wish software designers could do this a little more literally; I love how hardware designers get to etch cool logos on circuit boards.)
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the CISSP and ISSEP Exams, Second Edition Publisher: Wiley Authors: Ronald L. Krutz, Russell Dean Vines Rating: 2/5  I used three books to help me prepare for the exam. The authors know their subject and reading it should help you. I also read "All in one CISSP Study Guide" by Shon Harris. Although studying with any material you can get you hands on is always a good idea, I likely could have simply used Shon Harris's masterpiece, one of the other books that I purchased and not any other books. I found "The CISSP Prep Guide" lacking friendly examples and humor which made the book a dry, technical read. It kind of reminded me of the college text books about 16th Century music history. Sleepy and boring. And we all know computer security is more fun then that! Read Harris's book first, Carl Endorf's book second and only this one if you have the time!
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Absolute Beginner's Guide to C (2nd Edition) Publisher: Sams Authors: Greg Perry Rating: 5/5 When about three years ago I decided to begin learning programming I started searching a book that could show me the principles of basic-programming. The perfectly-explained concepts of this book gave me a very solid basis to go on learning C++, OOP and Windows-programming. Ok, you won't be a C-crack after having finished the book, but you won't regret it at all. I had some problems at the end of the book with file-access, but I could compensate it with other books. If you're a beginner, you absolutely have to buy it.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: XML for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide Publisher: Peachpit Press Authors: Elizabeth Castro Rating: 5/5 I've found this book to be the best book for starting to use XML. Whereas some other books will be 500 or more pages long and cost twice as much, no page is wasted by Elizabeth Castro. With Elizabeth's great writing style and examples you can easily find yourself learning stuff in half the number of pages of other books. Highly recommended. Clear, concise, well put together and a bargain price as well!
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