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Zen and The Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)[^]
And it's about as much about programming as it is about Zen Buddhism or motorcycle maintenance. But ... learn the right lessons from it, and you can cope with development (and make a start of fixing motorcycles as well).
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Good choice!
Real programmers use butterflies
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It's one of the few highly acclaimed books I was not able to finish. Couldn't go beyond 20 odd pages.
Another is Catch 22.
Cheers,
विक्रम
"We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread 
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I'd have to say the GoF patterns book.
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I have read the introductory chapters (intro and chapter 1) and then skipped around a bit. Mostly too hard for me. I like that they say, "Prefer composition over inheritance."
That's what that entire book is about for me. I remember back when OOP was growing in popularity (1991 or so) and it was all about inheritance. Then GoF explains, "no it's about composition". That's good stuff! 
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It's good as a reference. Just read the general description of each pattern and look at the details when you think you need a pattern but the UML diagram doesn't give you a good enough idea of how to write the code.
As much as anything, the fact that it gives a name to each pattern saves lots of time during design discussions, because everyone can quickly understand an approach being suggested. It's about much more than composition, though.
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Greg Utas wrote: gives a name to each pattern
Which is the only real value of the book. I bought a copy simply so I could be sure I knew what people were talking about and know which people had no idea what they were talking about.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Which is the only real value of the book.
I've gotten some mileage out of the visitor pattern but I didn't learn it from that book. In fairness though, they describe it for people that didn't already learn it, and it's one of the more useful patterns to know, IMO.
Real programmers use butterflies
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That's interesting, because I don't recall using Visitor. It probably depends on your problem domains. The patterns that resonated most with me were Chain of Responsibility, Abstract Factory, and Observer, and the simpler Singleton and Flyweight. I'd already used them but now had good names for them.
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Yeah it really depends on what you're doing. I've just had several occasions where I basically need to query an object model, and a visitor can be a foundation of that.
Real programmers use butterflies
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For me, it's a toss up between Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language, and Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger's The AWK Programming Language. Other books I remember from college days include Fortran IV With Watfor and Watfiv, and a two book set of Shelley & Cashman on Cobol. Those are all still around, somewhere in the attic, along with a lot of seriously outdated hardware. I know there's a 300 baud modem with the acoustic couplers for a standard Bell desk phone's handset up there, and a couple of cases of 80-column cards.
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Plus one for this choice: Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language
I taught myself C by reading and re-reading the second edition and everything was approachable, right through the end.
"Qulatiy is Job #1"
modified 27-Oct-20 12:48pm.
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Very useful indeed.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Petzold Programming Windows 3.1 will always have a special place for me.
I remember actually understanding this Windows programming thing and the Windows message loop and thinking, "wow, someone actually explains how this stuff works".
He explained stuff so well that it was like opening up a whole new world and programming was really exciting. Such a special book.
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Petzold is one of those rare individuals who can understand a subject and explain it in ways that a beginner can understand. Without patronising more advanced readers either.
He writes good stuff!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Cool. He's a really good teacher. I have a lot of respect for the man.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I still have a copy of that. I hug it occasionally for inspiration!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Forogar wrote: I still have a copy of that. I hug it occasionally for inspiration!
That is a very good idea. I'm going to have to start hugging mine too. 
Mine sits on a bottom shelf of a bookshelf in my Home Office and each time I see it I get all goose-pimply and start thinking I know how to program again. 
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Kind of mandatory[^]
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I concur. Never discard anything. Learn from ancient knowledge.
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I'd like to make a crazy proposal: When Intel presented its iAPX 432 CPU, I got hold of its reference manual. It is certainly not a programming book, yet it is about what we think of as programming. It made me thoroughly rethink the distinction between hardware and software - as well as some important software concepts.
E.g. in the 432, if one process sends one of its objects to another process (using the IPC instructions of the processor), the sending process looses that object. It may of course make a copy of the object before sending the original away (or keep the original, sending a copy), but the original and the copy are distinct objects. If you give one of them away, you give it away. That is how things work in real life, and in the 432, but not in commonly used software systems today.
Even though the 432 was a major flop, its reference manual has significantly formed my ideas about software. And hardware.
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Interesting!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Anything by Charles Petzold
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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When looking for basic algorithms, you can't do much better than Knuth. For specific programming languages, I prefer Plauger's The C Standard Library, Alexandrescu's Modern C++ Design, and anything by Steve McConnell or by Charles Petzold.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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