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293

answers:

9

I just spent some time at Bart de Smet's online blog and found it to be not only useful information for developers but at the same time interesting, fun, reading. The author obviously not only knows his subject matter, but has a talent for making his writing enjoyable to read:

...80 centimeters behind me lies the answer in dead tree format. I reach out to my bookshelve. A blue book, purchased 08/03/03 in Ghent according to a sticker on the back, is removed from its spot where it's been sitting since its overseas transportation almost two years ago. Not too dusty though. The title is still clearly readable: Windows Server 2003 TCP/IP Protocols and Services. Yes, I admit. I even posess books on IIS 6.0, Exchange 2003, Active Directory Services and PKI in Windows Server 2003...

What am I looking for anyway? Oh yes, huge number of connections in CLOSEWAIT state. Luckily, the Book Browser service declared a dependency on the Indexer service. It's consulted to load pages in the upper range of the dead tree volume, triggering a search algorithm for LCID 1033, and responds to the "CLOSEWAIT" query with an offset 329...

Another good example of this type of writing is the classic Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing which was 90s book on how to set up a web server but had a very subjective and informative writing style which kept you reading it like a novel as you learned different strategies for connecting a database to HTTP/HTML. The book was also choc full of random color pictures he had taken on his journeys around the world which made it one-of-a-kind.

I want to find more writing of this genre: e.g. writing that takes WPF and ASP.NET MVC and makes it juicy and fun and connects it to a wider range of knowledge/experience, writing which teaches you MVVM but also dabbles in philosophy and draws parallels between object-oriented patterns and Greek thought or Aristotle's drive to organize the world in a hierarchy, etc.

Who are the best developer/authors out there who are going beyond mere transmission of information, authors who combine their knowledge of IT and their writing talent to produce enjoyable literature that is useful to developers at a technical level?

+6  A: 

CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

By Charles Petzold

This is a good book for conceptual hardware design. Petzold may be the best computer tech writer around.

http://www.charlespetzold.com/code/

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319

jrcs3
Me, too. Loved this book.
serialhobbyist
A: 

Such a wide-open question, but Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com comes to mind.

lance
+4  A: 

One that doesn't cover specific technical issues like ASP.net, but rather the deeper questions about computation, creativity and philosophy, is Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It's also a rather nice history lesson in parts, and is a truly beautiful example of entertaining yet technically fascinating prose.

Adam Wright
Whereas I have really, really almost awestruck level of appreciation for GEB, I am not sure, If I would recommend to all developers.
Amit
A: 

My favorite is the Unix Haters Handbook. This book is both educational and unbelievable hillarious. It's an absolute must read for anyone who's ever administered (personally or professionally) a Unix/Linux system. My favorite chapter is NFS (the nightmare filesystem).

JaredPar
+2  A: 

I found Programming Perl (Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Randal Schwartz) fun to read, in addition to being as informative as you'd expect from a reference book.

The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris.

...

Whenever you're tempted to do any of these things, you need to sit back and think about what will do the most good for you and your neighbor over the long haul. If you're going to pour your creative energies into a lump of code, why not make the world a better place while you're at it?

Michael Petrotta
A: 

My top pick is CLR via C#. I really enjoyed reading it and learned a ton from it. I recoment it for anyone who is a .net programmer.

TheSean
+1  A: 

why's (poignant) guide to ruby

Nate
+2  A: 

The Old New Thing is a great blog, in my opinion: in equal parts advanced programming discussions and amusing anecdotes & observations. I understand Raymond Chen is a somewhat controversial figure among developers (probably mainly because he works at Microsoft), but you can't deny the guy is smart and a good writer.

Dan Tao
+1  A: 

You probably all know it : Joel Spolsky's blog is a neverending pool of wisdom for me. Even thought I think I read almost all his articles, I sill read them as recreation lecture.

Other books that I really enjoy reading and I thik they are a must read for any good developer are :

Steve McConnell - Code Complete 2nd edition

Dino Esposito, Andrea Saltarello - Architecting Applications for the Enterprise.

AlexDrenea