What is your favorite book about programming?

Question

Let's share our suggestions for great books about programming languages and development/design practices. They can be physical or e-books, but no 20-page guides. Name the title, author, a short description and how you came to like it so much. Is your opinion at least partly sentimental, or has it just been that useful to you?

Uou're allowed to name more than one, of course, but I would really love to learn about the cream of the crop. Let's get discussing!

I'll post my own answer below..

Answer 1

So far, mine is:

CLEAN CODE: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftmanship
by Robert C. Martin

Clean Code is a huge, 400-page, book about agile development. I got it as a gift during a job interview and even though all of the examples are written in Java, a language I have very little experience in, it has proven to be truly helpful. Basically, if you write code and want to write better code, you will benefit from this book. It touches everything from style and formatting to meaningful naming and commenting, all the way to data structures and unit testing. It was actually interesting to read the book without knowing much Java, because I didn't have as many preconceptions about how it should look.

I've always appreciated good code, not just memorization or barely getting something to function, but now I realize that it affects every minute detail of the process. I highly recommend picking it up if you get the chance, or at the very lest learning more about clean code in general.

Answer 2

@Taija M:

Great Question.
Great Answer. Yourself. The right way to get the UPvotes...
I gave one more.

The books i thought they where right are about 15 years old...

Is there a book release in german of CLEAN CODE?

Answer 3

Problem solving with C++: the object of programming. By Walter Savitch. Addison Wesley.