Things I’ve been reading

  • Rework
    • Read in 2014
    • I read this book a very long time ago, but I wanted to mention it here because it had such a simple yet profound impact on how I approach and view the value of time at work. It directly addresses how disruptive and destructive unnecessary meetings and process can be. Especially since it is such a quick read, I highly recommend this to anyone working in a corporate setting. It will cause you to second guess your own processes and learn how to better respect your own and other’s time.
  • Clean Code
    • Read in 2021
    • I actually started reading this one a few years ago but finally finished it in 2021. This one is a classic “must-read” for any programmer, in my opinion. It’s examples can be a bit out dated, but the concepts are timeless in developing clear software. Uncle Bob is one of the most influential and respected programmers out there and this book addresses how to organize, refactor, document, and test your code. He focuses on picking the right design patterns to accomplish your goals in a simple manner while allowing for your code to scale. I highly recommend any software engineer pick this up.
  • Clean Architecture
    • Read in 2022
    • Another one of Robert Martin’s classics. Clean Architecture is similar to Clean Code but focuses more on the design aspects of programming. It not only addresses clean code design, but clean architecture practicies when designing end to end systems. Expanding on concepts brought up in Clean Code, this book takes them to the next level and applies them at higher levels.
  • The Phoenix Project
    • Read in 2023
    • This is a fiction novel but is so on point in describing the problems of software engineering culture in large companies that I kept having to put it down out of the frustrating accuracy of it in comparison with my own life. It does do a fantastic job of describing the problems of “corporate bloat” with processes and how disruptive unplanned work can be to planned work. Through comparing an IT organization to a manufacturing floor, The Phoenix Project uses a clever and mysterious character to push the protagonist to figure out optimizations on his own while he goes through the process of improving the IT organization of a major auto parts supplier.
  • Designing Data-Intensive Applications
    • Currently reading
  • Microservices with Go
    • Currently reading
  • A Philosophy of Software Design
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • An Elegant Puzzle
  • Life in Code