#DevDiscuss Recommends Programming Books
Tags: books, programming, recommendations, discuss
Published: 2017-04-19 06:02:08

---
title: "#DevDiscuss Recommends Programming Books"
published: true
description: Some of the most-recommended books from the DevDiscuss Twitter chat on 4/18. With links!
tags: books, programming, recommendations, devdiscuss
---

Some people love programming books; some people hate them. I, clearly, am one of the former. And so while reading through the latest [#DevDiscuss](http://twitter.com/hashtag/devdiscuss) Twitter chat, I started taking note of which books were most recommended by DevDiscussers.

The following are the greatest hits, collected in an easy-to-browse format with links to Amazon.

#### The medalists: these three books had 5+ recommendations apiece.

- [*Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship*](https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882 "Clean Code on Amazon") by Robert C. Martin
- [*Code Complete*](https://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670 "Code Complete on Amazon") by Steve McConnell
- *[The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master](https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X "The Pragmatic Programmer on Amazon")* by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt

#### Books on project management and writing good code:

- [*The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers*](https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Coder-Conduct-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073) by Robert Martin
- [*Coders At Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming*](https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-Programming/dp/1430219483 "Coders at Work on Amazon") by Peter Seibel
- [*The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering*](https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959) by Frederick Brooks

#### Books on refactoring and maintaining good code:

- [*Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code*](https://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Improving-Design-Existing-Code/dp/0201485672) by Martin Fowler
- [*Refactoring To Patterns*](https://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Patterns-Joshua-Kerievsky/dp/0321213351) by Joshua Kerievsky
- [*Working Effectively with Legacy Code*](https://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052) by Michael Feathers

#### Books on software architecture and design patterns (language-agnostic):

- [*99 Bottles of OOP: A Practical Guide to Object-Oriented Design*](https://www.sandimetz.com/99bottles/) by Sandi Metz
- [*Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices*](https://www.amazon.com/Software-Development-Principles-Patterns-Practices/dp/0135974445) by Robert Martin
- [*Domain Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software*](https://www.amazon.com/Domain-Driven-Design-Tackling-Complexity-Software/dp/0321125215 "Domain Driven Design on Amazon") by Eric Evans
- [*High Performance Browser Networking*](https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Browser-Networking-performance/dp/1449344763) by Ilya Grigorik ([also available to read online](https://hpbn.co/))
- [*Just Enough Software Architecture: A Risk-Driven Approach*](https://www.amazon.com/Just-Enough-Software-Architecture-Risk-Driven/dp/0984618104) by George Fairbanks
- [*Production-Ready Microservices: Building Standardized Systems Across an Engineering Organization*](https://www.amazon.com/Production-Ready-Microservices-Standardized-Engineering-Organization/dp/1491965975) by Susan Fowler

#### Non-technical books to inform your programming:

- [*The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IK8PLE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) by Simon Singh
- [*The Design of Everyday Things*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E257T6C) by Don Norman
- [*Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures As the World's Most Wanted Hacker*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y0F0K) by Kevin Mitnick
- [*The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution*](https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-Revolution/dp/1476708703) by Walter Isaacson

#### Language-specific books:

- [*Eloquent Javascript*](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593275846) by Marijn Haverbeke ([also available to read online](http://eloquentjavascript.net/))
- [*If Hemingway Wrote Javascript*](https://www.amazon.com/Hemingway-Wrote-JavaScript-Angus-Croll/dp/1593275854) by Angus Croll
- [*Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer*](http://www.poodr.com/) by Sandi Metz
- [*Programming Ruby: the Pragmatic Programmer's Guide*](https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ruby-1-9-2-0-Programmers/dp/1937785491/ref=dp_ob_title_bk), aka the Pickaxe Ruby book, by Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt, and Chad Fowler
- [*You Don't Know JS* series](https://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Know-Js-Book/dp/B01AY9P0P6) by Kyle Simpson ([also available to read online](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS))