Programmer's reading radar chart

Document directory

• Coding Practice | programming practices
• Architecture & Design | Architecture and Design
• Methodology | Methodology
• Thought & Leadership | ideology and Leadership

Reference: http://agiledon.github.io/blog/2013/04/17/thoughtworks-developer-reading-radar/

The software industry is characterized by changes. To improve software development skills, you must keep up with the pace of technological development. Being immersed in project development and practice is certainly able to temper your development skills, but it is inevitably limited by experience and knowledge. There is no final shortcut in the world, but reading good technical books, especially reading the classic works of masters, can always get twice the result with half the effort. A good programmer may be a good reader. Good readers always know how to choose good books. The book is rich and varied. Reading good technical books, such as talking to wise men, "talking to Jun is better than reading ten years of books"; encountering poor technical books, such as trafficking, "the old man is away from home, and his hometown sounds have not changed ".

As a learning organization, ThoughtWorks emphasizes the learning ability of every employee. In fact, the majority of ThoughtWorker's bones are full of reading genes. It is a pleasure and a habit to join books and work with books. When habits become natural, books become an indispensable part of life and work. If books such as humanistic history and philosophy are a bowl of chicken soup for the soul, technical books are much more than just nutrients. Reading books can directly bring nutrients. If you don't know which kind of nutrition you lack, the result may be counterproductive. In view of this, I and my colleague Liu longjun combined their reading experience to create a roadmap for new programmers who joined ThoughtWorks. We define the scope as a programmer because, as a programmer, we are the most familiar working role. We have screened some well-recognized classic books, combined with our own reading experience, and solicited more opinions from ThoughtWorker, including senior readers such as Xu Hao, Xiong Jie, and Zheng Yu, obtained such a draft. This book road map was recognized and welcomed by most people at the launch of Chinese companies. Then, we launched a book club activity in Chengdu Office on this road map, which is a comprehensive and large-scale test.

Now we think it is time to launch the official version and target more audiences. This is what we see now: ThoughtWorks (China) programmers reading radar. Compared with the previous draft of the reading roadmap, it provides more professional classification, more reasonable book screening, and presents different reading dimensions and depth with the unique advantages of radar. Obviously, the reading radar can better express our deep understanding of the books we have chosen. It can be used as a knowledge input for a learning organization. Every programmer can choose a suitable book based on his or her own level and ability, and even form a roadmap to express his or her reading experience, in the process of improving and learning knowledge, we can improve our ability to reach the peak of each dimension.

The reading radar divides the books into the following four dimensions:

Coding Practice (Programming Practice)
Architecture & Design)
Methodology (Methodology)
Thought & Leadership (thoughts and Leadership)

The reason why we put methodologies, ideas, and leadership into this book radar designed for programmers is because software development is not only a personal activity, but also a reflection of coding skills and design capabilities. We believe that development skills are actually a comprehensive system engineering. Understanding the methodology can promote your understanding of the development process. thinking involves the cultivation of brain thinking, which can improve the abstract and learning abilities of programmers, it helps programmers discover the laws and nature of things. As for leadership, it helps programmers play a greater role in the development team and can serve as a good team member to improve the overall ability of the team. We didn't include books of language in this reading radar because these books are too divergent and updated quickly. We can't expect them to be in a reading radar chart, show different excellent books for different language platforms. Compared with language learning, we pay more attention to the basic skills of programmers in programming practice.

Each dimension is divided into three levels: Fundamental, Medium, and Advanced, corresponding to beginner, Advanced, and Advanced. In radar charts, readers can determine the difficulty level of the book based on its distance from the circle center. We also use different icons to express our views on each book. The Orange triangle icon represents "strongly recommended", and the blue circle icon represents "recommended ". We hope that this type of books will be suitable for programmers based on their current levels. At this level, it is strongly recommended that it be readable.

Some may question the selection criteria of reading radar. As we call it "everyone has their own Hamlet in mind", what we agree with may not be recognized by readers. This is the norm of a viewpoint or attitude in our world. We released this reading radar, hoping to provide more useful information and reference, rather than representing a kind of absolute right to read. In fact, we cannot. In addition, "I have a poor life, but I know nothing about it." After all, the books we read are limited, and the reading radar capacity is limited. It is inevitable that there will be a sigh, this is also a helpless thing. However, we welcome more criticism and suggestions. Perhaps the good books you recommend are just what we forget, or have aroused our consensus, then, we will update the reading radar without hesitation, in order to achieve perfection within our capabilities. Of course, as you can see, we recommend more books related to agility and lean in the Methodology (Methodology) dimension. This is because we have more experience and confidence in Agile skills and methods. We do not dare or want to make recommendations that may mislead people for areas that Liu and I are not good.

Although this book radar is named ThoughtWorks (China), The Book Selection tendency and opinions are not official attitudes of ThoughtWorks (China), but as producers (Long Jun and I) personal opinions. If you have joined ThoughtWorks, you will surely find that this kind of spontaneous folk activity can be found in ThoughtWorks.

In the subsequent articles, I will give each book a reason for recommendation based on each dimension. At this time, books have become our subjects. I would like to make a tour of this kingdom without appreciation. Finally, list the Chinese and English books of the reading radar, as shown below (thanks to the bean column created by Kaifeng for this radar chart, you can access ThoughtWorks (China) programmer's reading radar ):

Coding Practice | basics of programming practices

Clean Code: Clean Code
Pragmatic Unit Testing Unit test path
The Productive Programmer Productive programmers
Test-Driven Development By Example Test-Driven Development
Clean Coder "Professional Cultivation of programmers"
The Art of Readable Code: The Art of writing Readable Code

Advanced

Refactoring To Patterns reconstruction and Pattern
Implementation Patterns Implementation Mode
Code Complete Code Daquan
The Pragmatic Programmer The way programmers practice

Advanced

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs construction and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Working implements tively with Legacy Code "the art of Code modification"

Architecture & Design | Architecture and Design basics

Agile Software Development: principles, practices and models
Head First Design Patterns deep dive into Design Patterns
Design Patterns

Advanced

The Art of UNIX Programming Unix Programming Art
Practical API Design: The art of Framework Design
Domain Specific editions Domain-Specific Languages
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture model

Advanced

Release It
Domain-Driven Design: Domain-Driven Design
Enterprise Integration Patterns Enterprise Integration Model
Beautiful Architecture: the beauty of Architecture
Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture

Methodology | basics of Methodology

User Stories Applied User Stories and agile methods
The Gold Mine
Scrum and XP From the Trenches Scrum and XP in smoke
Continuous Integration
Extreme Programming Explained resolution Extreme Programming

Advanced

Lean Thinking Lean Thoughts
Continuous Delivery
How Google Tests Software
Agile Testing
Extreme Programming Refactored refactoring Extreme Programming

Advanced

Specification By Example

Thought & Leadership | basics of Thought and Leadership

The Effective Executive Effective manager
Are Your Lights On? Is your light on?
Becoming A Technical Leader Becoming A technology Leader

Advanced

The Fifth practice
The Design Of Business
Management 3.0 Management 3.0: cultivating and improving agile leadership
Presentation To Win
The McKinsey Way McKinsey Method

Advanced

Thinking, Fast and Slow: Fast and Slow Thinking

Posted by Zhang Yi Apr 17th, 2013 Reading