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Ask HN: What's the ONE book I should read about software engineering?

4 pointsby nonasktellover 2 years ago
I&#x27;m a twenty something, mostly self taught software engineer&#x2F;dev(started as a kid), a bit of a jack of all trades, but mostly doing fullstack JS development for a startup right now.<p>Mostly have a hacker mindset I guess, resourceful, autonomous, able to find messy quick fixes to huge problems, I guess I could code pretty much anything that is actually feasible, but I&#x27;m not really the kind of guy who could write Fizzbuzz Enterprise Edition without loosing my mind.<p>This can create some tensions with management.<p>I don&#x27;t have much time right now, if I had to read ONE book about software engineering, what would you suggest?<p>My mid&#x2F;long term goal would be freelancing&#x2F;bootstrapping&#x2F;entrepreneurship

3 comments

Jtsummersover 2 years ago
If you really only have time for one book, <i>The Psychology of Computer Programming</i> by Gerald Weinberg. Silver anniversary edition, it keeps the vast majority of the text intact and adds commentary between chapters by Weinberg.
mardiyahover 2 years ago
there&#x27;s none, try few<p>Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geni.us&#x2F;GQSU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geni.us&#x2F;GQSU</a><p>Refactoring Improving the Design of Existing Code <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geni.us&#x2F;u2s6pK" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geni.us&#x2F;u2s6pK</a>
zhxshenover 2 years ago
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;files.catwell.info&#x2F;misc&#x2F;mirror&#x2F;the-unix-programming-environment-kernighan-pike.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;files.catwell.info&#x2F;misc&#x2F;mirror&#x2F;the-unix-programming-e...</a>