Re: Essential skills for any software developer

I recommend reading these books:

The Pragmatic Programmer. Full of great general tips for software developers. Especially good analogies (e.g. boiling frogs, no broken windows, ...).
The Design of Everyday Things. Allows you to understand the psychological principles behind interface design.
The Mythical Man Month. A classic on software project management.
The Inmates are Running the Asylum. How to design software products. Also describes "persona-based" requirements/design (more fully described in his larger "About Face" book).

These are all excellent works: well-written, entertaining and easy to read. And short.

Comment on Re: Essential skills for any software developer

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Essential skills for any software developer by duckyd (Hermit) on Aug 08, 2007 at 22:47 UTC
I liked Code Craft a lot, it is very readable and has good advice on a range of subjects related to being a software developer	[reply]
Re^2: Essential skills for any software developer by gam3 (Curate) on Aug 10, 2007 at 13:11 UTC
I would add to that list a style book. The The Elements of Java style] is nice, but has the word Java in the title. The classic book is The Elements of Programming Style, but I have not read it and don't know how readable it is. Bently's Programming Pearls is also a good book to for programmers to read. This is mostly a book about how to solve the X Y Problem. -- gam3 A picture is worth a thousand words, but takes 200K.	[reply]