So, I often read more than one book at once, is that just me? I keep them in different places so that I can have them when I need them. Por exemplo: I like to keep a book in my car for when I am out and going to wait somewhere, or one in my living room for quiet time. So all the books I am reading right now are technical. That doesn't always happen, I love a good mystery novel, but there are a lot of things I want to catch up on.
I think its important to be well aware of your strengths and weaknesses, it makes you a stronger person. I always say it doesn't matter where you start, if you are consistantly improving without fail you will always succeed. . When it comes to being a developer my strengths are mostly design and learning new things, my weaknesses are my endurance when things get monotonous and my foundation. (Foundation being all the things that occur before the CLR). I like to read to work on the things I am weakest in, so here is my current list of books (and what I am reading about, and where).
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - This book is the one that EVERYONE reads. Its great because though I've used many of these patterns (often without knowing it) they explain what the problem is first, and then give you the solutions that solve them. So now I know more than just singleton and interface and abstract class. I'm like an architecting machine. I read this book when I am blow drying my hair, you laugh but I hav ea lot of hair this takes a while.
CLR via C#, Second Edition - This book was recommended to me by a friend who saw me struggling with some of these concepts and I can't even tell you how great it is. I have learned so much about terms I hear all the time like MSIL and JITC and such (I just started, can't wait to learn more). This is my gym book, I read it while doing cardio with the Mets game in the background. (Tonight was rough, I miss Willie's scowl from inside the dugout).
Agile Estimating and Planning - I am reading this book in preparation for long project planning. It is serving me well thus far, I really like the focus on the weaknesses of simply planning, and illustrates the best way to avoid common mistakes. I am learning, and it is also reinforcing things I already knew, which always feels good. I read this book wherever I can.
What are you reading right now? Do you have books you would recommend?
While we're at it what are your strengths/weaknesses as a developer? What do you do about them?
Right now I'm reading Expression Blend 2: Building Applications in WPF and Silverlight. I just made the switch fro Blend 1 to Blend 2, and I'm a little stumped on where some of my favourite features have gone (simple styles?!?).
ReplyDeleteI've also recently had a shopping spree on Amazon and I bought PHP MySQL books, and a Creative Advertising book for my design work. I read that every night (or rather, I look at the awesome ad campaigns - there's a Martini one with an optical illusion :))
I don't know what I'll get next, but it will probably be an Expression Design book (to accompany my Expression Blend tutorials).
Lloyd :)
(and why is the comment box monospaced?)
I'm noticing a common theme here?
ReplyDeleteTell me something, does expression blend generate html when it is used? Like, I know designers can use expression blend and hand off the comps to develolpers, I was also under the impression that it would be a lot easier for use to run with them, is that because the html is already made?
Well, right now I'm reading TrainingKit to the 70-536 exam... Strange, because I'm work with .NET since 2004 and don't know why I wait so long to get the exams. Well, who knows. ;)
ReplyDeleteSara, your question about WPF, I think the idea of Blend is more to use with WinForms and Silverlight (like Flash) applications.
With WinForms is a friendly tool that the designers use to generate all UI stuffs. Then developers 'imports' the XAML to WPF WinForm application and make the magic happen.
See ya.
I've seen an example where the WPF thing went the other way: the developers wrote the logic and the UI, and then merged the XAML code with code produced by a design company. I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet they used Blend rather than VS for that -- see codebetter.com/.../wpf-from-this-t
ReplyDeleteMy recent book acquisitions:
C Primer Plus (not finished yet)
Concrete Mathematics (barely even started -- way beyond my current abilities)
C# in depth (a bit on the easy side if you already know your way around the language)
I try to vary the stuff I get -- I own and have read a lot of books on managing software development teams (both PM and team lead perspective). It's very interesting reading, despite the fact that for the most part I've been in the lone developer niche.
Rytmis... thats is possible too...
ReplyDeleteI mean, like web application using ASP.NET today, where designers and developers works in separate parts of a page (Designer = .ASPX, DevTeam = .CS/.VB.). Different from the old ASP where they basically work in the same file, and all possible (and frightening) errors can happen.
So, WPF comes to merge this concept into the WinForms world. Designers create they thing (styles/colors/themes/templates) in XAML language (using Blend) and Devs just imports and thadaaa... the beauty appears as you show in the link you pass.
This is just one of many possibilities that came with the WPF.
See ya.
I also like how WPF controls are capable of being laid out more like web pages (minus the browser-specific quirks!) and scaled at will. All in all, very promising. Now, in order to really know what I'm talking about, I should probably try and *do* something with WPF. :)
ReplyDeleteAbout 2 months ago, I bought a bunch of books very cheaply at a book fair. Unlike you, I only read 1 at a time. I'm currently reading a book that is a collection of the best sci-fi short stories of the year 2001. Before that, I'd read Best Software Writing, which is a cool collection of software development related blog posts, selected and introduced by Joel Spolsky. I really recommend it.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Why men love Bitches?? :)~
ReplyDelete@Rytmis: I'm glad you're finding C# in Depth easy. My main worry is that people will find it too tricky! Hopefully even if you know the language pretty well, you'll still find a few nuggets you weren't aware of :)
ReplyDelete@Rytmis Robson: I agree the idea of there being seamless transfers from Designers to Dev is awesome. I haven't worked with XAML yet, but I look forward to learning it. I figure it's the obvious next step, gotta stay current. Even though I have opted out of using Silverlight for my next app, I still think it will take off in the future and would be handy to know.
ReplyDelete@Tommy: I LOVE JOEL. He's extremely resourceful and a lot of his articles are ahead of his time. If you want a good scifi book read Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Treasury It contains my two favorite short stories The Last Question and Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?
@Erika: LOL I have not idea what book you are talking about.
@Jon: Well, now you've posted on my site I have to buy your book, so you've just made a sale. Hope you visit again :).
@schipps: Duly added to Google Reader :)
ReplyDelete(My own blog is down at the moment for reasons which are tedious but complicated. Hopefully it'll be back up soon at http://msmvps.com/jon.skeet)
Hope you like the book - and if you don't, please tell me why! (Praise is good for the ego; criticism is good for future work.)
@Jon: I love the way the book is organized. I also love the way it emphasizes C# the language, not VS.NET or WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF or any other framework. Nicely done. :)
ReplyDeleteI have to give the book another go at some point to see if I find something lacking in it; first impressions say no, but I was kinda biased *for* the book, not against it, so there's a vague possibility of rose-tinted glasses affecting my verdict.
Is it just me or is there something a bit magical about having an actual dialogue with the people you buy books from?
@Jon, cont'd: I have no idea if other people will find it hard to follow. Given that I haven't had the opportunity to toy with the newest frameworks, I've just familiarized myself with the new features of the language. Coming from there, your book was very approachable. It didn't cover *much* new ground, but it did a world of good in terms of organizing the knowledge I already had, which is quite the feat in itself. I'd recommend the book to any C# dev with half a brain. :)
ReplyDeleteDesign patterns in C# from Addison Wesley is the C# version of the book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
ReplyDeleteA good followup of the book is the book: Patterns of enterprise application architecture from Martin Fowler. It's extends your knowledge with wonderfull new patterns. Martin Folwer also got another great book named Refactoring.
I have the following books on my reading list at the moment:
- Working Effectively with legacy code
- XUnit test patterns
- The pragmatic programmer
- Implementing lean software development
A good wpf book to startup with is WPF Unleashed, full of pictures and let's you start quickly with understanding the concept. After that book get a copy of application=code+markup, which is more a text book and directed at programmers. I also own the silverlight books wrox silverlight 1.0 and silverlight 1.0 unleashed, found them kinda useless. Didn't learn that much from the books. After you know a lot about WPF it's more a task of figuring out what part of WPF is actually supported in Silverlight. (And that is a lot less than you wish =(( )
One good thing about Visual Studio 2008 is that if you get a large wpf application, the IntelliSense stops working =( Speeds up your proces of learning to type xaml by hand.
@Rytmis: Will continue this conversation on your blog, so as not to hijack Sara's :)
ReplyDelete(It will either be right now, or later tonight...)
Jon
Right now, I'm reading many things - Pro WPF, SQL Server 2005 Unleashed and just finished Peopleware
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about this WPF thing - you can do some really cool stuff, but some basic stuff is really difficult to get good looking results (for example, menus). I know that menus are passe in the web world, but I really need to create PC based software and like it or not, people expect them.