When you embark on the journey of becoming a software engineer, you’re voluntarily choosing a path that requires constant learning. This is particularly true since the field of technology is ever-evolving.
However, with the number of blogs and tutorials and online communities available these days, gaining knowledge about software development is easy. Also, software development is a hands-on and interactive activity, hence most of the time it does make sense to seek out a more practical solution rather than looking for it in books.
That said, there’s still space for truly remarkable books for software developers and engineers. Books have room to go into more depth on the specific subject matter using valid examples and concise writing. On that note, we have prepared a list of books for software engineers to read no matter what level they’re at in their careers.
1. Clean Code
Author: Robert C. Martin
This book, which is considered one of best software engineering books, has been written by a best-selling author of several popular software engineering books, such as The Clean Coder, Clean Architecture, etc. That’s not all, Robert C. Martin is widely acknowledged as one of the founders of Agile Methodology, and co-wrote a book titled Manifesto For Agile Software Development.
This book has been written to provide a complete understanding of how to write clean programming codes. It presents many examples of how to refactor codes to be more readable and manageable, however, these are most java-centric.
Another thing to remember here is that the book is written in 2009. Hence, some content such as code formatting is less relevant today. Nonetheless, it’s still a good read.
2. The Art of Computer Programming (Vol.1-4)
Authors: Donald Knuth and Donald John Fuller
This series of books is a valuable resource for any budding software engineer, even though it’s quite expensive. The volume comprises 4 books that present programmers with essential information to guide them irrespective of the level they’re at.
One of the primary objectives of this book series is to educate its readers about the comprehensive tools often used in programming. It’s important to mention here that this book isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover but rather it’s a resource you can refer to at your convenience.
3. The Pragmatic Programmer
Authors: Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
This is another one of the best software engineering books that covers many areas relevant to software engineers and developers. Many university courses frequently mention this book for recommended readings.
What sets this book apart from most other textbooks is that it focuses more on practical tips and methods for software development. Each chapter ends with problem sets that can be used to test your knowledge and practice. The authors often use several analogies to elaborate on their points about development methods and shortcomings. We recommend that you buy the 20th Anniversary edition.
4. CSS In Depth
Author: Keith J. Grant
There’s not a lot of handholding when it comes to using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the programming language that determines much of a website’s look and feel.
Compared to other areas of software development, CSS has seen relatively few changes since its debut in the 1990s. That’s partly because CSS is quite self-explanatory as any changes developers make are instantly reflected on the browser. However, in case of developing sophisticated, user-centric web applications, CSS can be quite complex and messy if developers aren’t careful.
This book takes the readers through all aspects of the language, starting with the fundamentals and moving into intricate concepts like design and scaling up with CSS.
5. Working Effectively With Legacy Code
Author: Michael Feathers
This book provides efficient strategies to work with large, untested legacy code bases. You may think legacy code shouldn’t be a problem anymore in 2023 because we have clean and manageable codes and microservices now. However, this is a misconception. Legacy code is still a problem area for many organisations.
After reading the book you’ll have better clarity on the general mechanics of software changes, such as adding features, optimising performance and fixing bugs.
6. A Philosophy of Software Design
Author: John K. Ousterhout
The book primarily focuses on reducing the complexity of software design. It also discusses many of the philosophical aspects of any of the processes that software engineers and developers must follow during the development of a product.
The book utilizes a fascinating structure to explain the concepts simply. Every detail is presented in a manner that’s easy to comprehend. This makes the book a fantastic read if you’re looking for an in-depth perspective into the philosophies in software engineering.
7. Test-Driven Development: By Example
Author: Kent Beck
Test-Driven Development simply means that engineers are increasingly converting software requirements into test cases and testing them during the development process rather than afterwards.
Kent Beck rediscovered this technique in the early 2000s and published his book later. Since then, TDD has garnered quite a reputation among software engineers and tech companies. It’s also credited with helping developers build simpler software and inspiring greater confidence. Whether you use TDD or not in the future, the book still provides some valuable insights.
8. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
Author: Martin Fowler
This resource focuses on the practice of enterprise application development. After providing a short tutorial on developing enterprise applications, Martin then presents over 40 patterns as solutions to common issues while creating the enterprise applications. It also comes with many UML visualisations and code examples written in C# and Java.
Reading the book will help you learn how to divide an enterprise app into layers and grasp the practical approaches to organising business logic. Even though it doesn’t mention many of the modern concepts like REST, cloud, and JSON are not mentioned, it’s still a good read.
9. You Don’t Know JS Yet
Author: Kyle Simpson
This is a series of six books dedicated to the JavaScript language, which fuels most of the modern, interactive web experiences as we know them today. The books delve into how JavaScript behaves differently from other programming languages which the author explains carefully.
The first book discusses the history and function of the language and the other books touch upon the specific features of the language. Whether you’re a novice programmer or a seasoned one, the books will help enhance your knowledge and skill to a great extent.
Final Thoughts,
While there is no dearth of resources on the web for software engineers and developers to hone their skills, very few of them provide in-depth knowledge. When you want to excel in a competitive career in software development, you need to read books to shape your understanding. Hopefully, the books mentioned here will help you become an accomplished professional in the field of software development.