My list of the best and worst books
Today I will tell you about books that helped me learn something new and useful, and I will also tell you about those books that you should never read. The place in the list does not mean anything, the books are about different things and it is impossible to put them in the top.
List of the best
Deadline. A Novel About Project Management
The book “Deadline” by Tom DeMarco is a work of fiction about project management. In it, the author describes real methods of recruiting personnel, distributing work groups, delegating tasks and organizing processes.
The book's protagonist is the head of an American company who goes to a small country to manage the work of several teams of developers on many projects under tight deadlines. The story is told in a humorous style, and the author draws conclusions that he writes down in his notebook.
The book presents the basic principles of management, tips on ensuring safety and implementing changes, using negative motivation, conducting interviews and hiring, increasing productivity and other recommendations for beginners and experienced managers.
For me personally, this book became a wonderful guide into the world of management, and helped me understand what I was doing wrong and what worked out well.
Grokking algorithms
A classic from the world of studying algorithms, in the book you will find a lot, starting with sorting and searching, ending with graphs and dynamic programming, suitable for both beginners and experienced specialists. It has many practical examples and tasks, advice on choosing effective algorithms. Even if you do not work in highload, where there is a war for every millisecond, this book will still be able to give you the basic principles of working with algorithms, which will sometimes help you write more beautiful and effective code.
Refactoring JavaScript Code
The book Refactoring Code in JavaScript by Martin Fowler is dedicated to improving the design of existing code. It presents more than 60 refactoring methods with practical examples in the JavaScript programming language. For me, many of the presented methods have become excellent allies in writing code, and in improving the overall code in the project, in half a year of proper refactoring, my team and I improved most of the project's code base.
The Ideal Programmer
In this book, the legendary expert talks about what it means to be a professional programmer and describes the methods, tools, and practices for developing ideal software. The book is full of practical advice on all aspects of programming: from project evaluation and writing code to refactoring and testing. This book perfectly helps to understand how to become a professional in your field, and shows the differences between an ordinary programmer and a professional developer. A great book for everyone, from very green juniors to bearded seniors.
Purpose: Continuous improvement process
In this book, Eliyahu Goldratt describes the theory of constraints, which helps to eliminate weaknesses in business. The main idea of the book is that the result of a business depends on the performance of the weakest element of the system. There is nothing super complicated in this book, but it makes you look at the world from a different angle, and evaluate your failures and successes from another side.
Frog, Elephant and Broccoli. How to Live and How Not to Live
In this book, Alexey Markov talks about different aspects of self-development and gives advice on how to live. The book is written in a light and ironic style and is very easy to read, like most of the books by this author. For me personally, this book was a revelation, there is nothing super complicated in it, but the author, instead of abstractions and smart sayings, speaks directly, in this book there is a sea of phrases that are simple, but make you not just think about something, but take and change yourself for the better.
Jedi Techniques
This book is about the principles of productivity and self-organization, based on the structure of the brain and modern research in psychology and physiology. The book examines the issues of memory, loss of mental fuel, concentration, formulation of tasks and recovery for productive work. You can watch several lectures by Maxim Dorofeev (Author) for this book, they will perfectly complement what you read in the book. Thanks to this book, I understood a very important thing, you don’t need to hammer out code for 12 hours, and Maxim explained why it’s bad and how to do it well.
List of the worst
There are only 2 books here, probably because I haven't finished reading many books that could have ended up here. But I really want to tell you about these masterpieces
Think and get rich
Who would have thought that the guide for most modern blogger courses was written in 1937, in this book almost everything talks about the proverb “Thoughts are material”, and if not about it, then about banalities in the spirit of, set a goal and go for it, but this reading on 350+ pages (although it seemed to me that it had 500+ pages) is very stuffy and forgets to complement the thought, so it turns out that do something and think about good things. Maybe this could help someone, but in this book everything is imbued with latent esotericism, faith in the limitless possibilities of the human mind, the importance of visualization and self-hypnosis, as well as using the power of the subconscious to achieve success. And it turns out that the book has some normal thoughts, under the sauce of esotericism, and it turns out that a positive attitude does not give you +1 to confidence and communication, but gives you a magical aura with a 100% chance of success in all endeavors.
React 17. Developing Web Applications with JavaScript
The book was published in 2021 and this is important, let's tell you a little about what you will learn in this book:
1) Learn about React
2) Learn about Redux
3) Learn about PropTypes
4) Learn about classes…..
Wait! What classes? The book is called React 17, PROPTYPES….. I already forgot what kind of monster it is, and there is nothing about TypeScript, and how is this possible in 2021
Now a little constructive, the title seems to suggest that we will learn something cool about version 17 of React, but no, this book doesn't have anything about version 17, it is based on version 15, but it mentions that hooks exist, there are references to more current versions, but the book was written in 2017 and is simply being resold with a new title and minimal additions.
These words are relevant for many technology books, often they are not updated properly, but this one shocked me, the book tries to tell about the first launch of React and about Redux with Formik in 350 pages, it seems to me that the documentation for all these technologies will be longer than this book. The versions are not specified, but the code was good for 2017, then such code would not be very good, and in 2021 it is downright bad.
Summary
Here is my short list of 9 books that were able to bring something new into my life or change something that was not working correctly. I hope you were able to find interesting copies for yourself.
Enjoy reading!
