Which books should a programmer read and in which order?

Question

Duplicate of: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

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Hi, recently a very young co-worker asked if I know some articles, blogs or books she could read to become a better programmer. I told her there are reading lists with "Every book a programmer should read". I've seen those lists, I've read some books, but there is a problem with it. Those list aren't organized, and they could misslead young programmers to read books like Code Complete or Design Pattern, when they are just starting to develop software and their biggest problem is that they don't completely get OOP or their code formatting sucks, or they just can't use functions right. So, I was wondering if there is some kind of sorted list, or better, "sorted tree" of important books that would help most programmers to become better, and in which order they should be read in each branch of software development, design principles, good practices, algorithms, etc. (Sorry about my horrible English)

Answer 1

I think every programmers should read Code Complete: 2nd Edition by Steve McConnell. Simply the book about programming out there. Also for starters.

And I still think the book about Design Patterns by the Gang of Four should be on your bookshelf, although it is a bit more 'advanced'.

I'd also recommend a book about the language you're going to program in (so a book about Java, C#, C++, etc).

EDIT: ok, I just completely missed that you mention the exact two books I give in my answer, which I think is very strange. They're definately great books, and especially Code Complete is not a hard book to grasp. On the contrary, you can specifically decide for yourself what chapters of the book you want to read (the one about loops, comments, etcetera). I'm not saying there aren't other good books, but those are just I'd recommend.

Answer 2

Similar questions - Choose your flavor and go:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/452864/what-are-some-of-your-oldest-programming-books-that-you-still-use

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72893/whats-the-best-way-to-learn-c-quickly

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/327332/what-should-a-non-cs-grad-learn-to-be-good-with-programming-languages-like-c

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/172917/best-intermediate-level-c-reference-book

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/446743/best-book-to-get-intimately-familiar-with-the-net-framework

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/561481/learning-c

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/189225/a-good-c-book

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/570193/build-a-c-bookshelf-what-books-would-you-include

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/46048/what-is-the-best-book-to-learn-c

Answer 3

The Mythical Man Month is great, especially if you're thinking about starting some kind of coding project.