Technical readings of 2020
Tags: books, programming, go, algorithms
Published: 2021-01-04 14:38:32

The year of 2020 was the most prolific year in term of readings for me. Because the pandemic and quarantine I had way more time to read. Most books weren't programming books, but I will leave here the technical ones and my impressions.

## The Go Programming Language

![gopl.io](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ecmus0f94mm4e1yinqg2.jpg)

For sure the reference book for the Go programming language. You're going to find everything you need to get started and some more advanced topics such as go routines and how to do meta programming using reflection.
Because Go has evolved a bit since the release of this book, the modules topic is not up-to-date, but still a great book that I really recommend, specially because of exercises. I think all programming books should follow this and leave the readers with some exercises to get the hands dirty at the end. Programming needs practice, passive reading is not enough when it comes to writing code.

## Learning Javascript Data Structures and Algorithms

![Learning Javascript Data Structures and Algorithms](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/vpxwkhfuy2akqo8upohi.jpg)

Loiane has a damn good didactic!!!

I guess it's the book with the best introduction to algorithms and data structures I ever read, along with the next one I show next. In special, her explanation of graphs and short distance algorithm is super valuable. 

If you never read any book about the topic and wants an introductory hands on book, start with this one and thank me later. ;)

## Grokking Algorithms

![Grokking Algorithms](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/nopfscqfpnyb38dx6t64.jpg)

Aditya Bhargava is another author with a teachers mind. Many difficult topics are easily digested throughout the book. I missed exercises, but if you have the discipline you can basically reproduce the explanations using your favorite programming language. 

## The Algorithm Design Manual

![The Algorithm Design Manual](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ioxzbadk0iq8q538y602.jpg)

Skiena's book is a reference on algorithms and data structures. While I write this post I'm still trying to read this book. I lack the math background to understand the mathematical proofs, which takes me more time to read, since I struggle to understand some parts and need to change my focus to learn something aside before progressing. But for me math is also fun, as long it is not too generic and abstract for my taste, so I keep reading it in slow mode, this way I don't lose the motivation. The pseudo C implementation of algorithms are straightforward if you already have a programming background, trying to re-implement them in your favorite language is eye opening.

## New years reading resolution

I managed to read 26 varied topics books last year (not counting comic books). My biggest record in terms of reading! 

I will keep my expectations under control. While I still want to continue with the reading habits, I'm pretty sure reading this amount of books again probably will not be the case for this year.

If you want to check what I'm reading, please follow me on [goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/56319897-hercules-merscher). And let me know what you think about the books mentioned here and your recommendations.