Quite simple, list programming related books you’ve read or are reading and how you liked them. Great resource for beginning FIRST coder’s who need/want some extra reading material
Anyways, here goes! (I have my full list here which I want to knock off before I die )
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Teaches a lot of programming concepts and ways to expand your knowledge on programming. Has a great bibliography and enforces great concepts for programming teams. Loved it.
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andrew Hunt
Great resource on how to expand your mind, sort of like learning how to learn.
Code Complete by Steve McConnell
Haven’t read this one yet…it’s on my reading queue.
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation by Jon Erickson
Awesome look into the deeps of computer science and how programs really work.
The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
I don’t own this one…yet. It will probably take me a year to conquer, this is pretty much the ultimate guide to computer algorithms and structure.
Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi and Shane Warden
This is a whole bunch of interviews with the coders behind more than a dozen (IIRC) major programming languages throughout the years. A great nostalgic look at how programming evolved.
Any other recommendations? I’ve got a huge list but I can never read enough books
Its a bit thick (2" 1023 pages (wow, how appropriate!)) but covers almost every aspect of C AND C++ from variable types, to polymorphism
The Complete Reference C++ fourth edition by Herbert Schildt (He was on the ANSI/ISO C++ standardization committee!)
Philosophical Programmer: Reflections on The Moth in the Machine—Daniel Kohansk:
The Age of the Thinking Machines----Ray Kurzweil
(A few others that I don’t remember)
Not totally FIRST-related, but I enjoyed “Linux Robotics” - D. J Newman
It covers some robotics basics and programming (mostly with Java), including AI, some image processing, and even some fun things like speech recognition.
I guess it applies a bit more this year with the addition of the Java programming environment, though.
“Teach yourself xxxx in 24 hours” - I’ve read several in this series, and all of them brought me up to speed from zero to functional in just a few days of focused effort.
For C++, by far my favorite text is Effective C++ by Scott Meyers. Not only does he provide great guidelines for crafting effective and maintainable C++, but the dry wit all over the text makes for an entertaining read.
About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design by Alan Cooper
I wish more developers would read this book… and take it to heart
The Psychology Of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
This book is a must read for anything built for human interaction, including robots
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
Not directly related to programming, but programmers will probably like the content.
I found this book to be very well written and an excellent introduction to the arbitration and subsumption model of robotics programming developed by Rodney Brooks and others at MIT. The authors were involved with the development of the very first Roomba robots at iRobot. The book won’t teach you how to program, but it will give you a very good foundation in autonomous robotic behavior, which as we all know, is becoming ever more important in FIRST competitions.
I also want to echo the props for Steve McConnell’s Code Complete (either edition). It is a book that you don’t need to read from beginning to end - just pick it up when you get a chance and read a chapter or two at random, and you are guaranteed to take away some useful programming insights.
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides
Probably not very applicable to FIRST, but a great reference for object-oriented programming. Reading it made a lot of stuff I’d seen in industry code make sense.
Still haven’t finished reading this (or learning Ruby - I’ve become very side tracked), but it’s still and excellent (and funny, I mean REALLY REALLY funny) read.
Otherwise, I’ve been mostly a self teaching guy, with the web as a good friend. I’ve been able to grasp the concept of Object Oriented programming pretty strongly from the elegantly designed Cocoa Framework.
My favourite beyond all favourites of programming books (I’ve read an enormous amount) is Probabilistic Robotics](http://robots.stanford.edu/probabilistic-robotics/). It’s a great reference for when I quickly need to implement an EKF or whatever to save the robots! I’m more into Social Robotics and AI, so it really doesn’t pertain to FIRST much.
Really cool to see that someone else does Cocoa Objective-C! Rock on!
I’ve read The C Programming Language - best book ever.
Every night before I go to bed I read a passage from SICP.
If I don’t I can’t fall asleep properly.
Pragmatic thinking and Learning: Refractor Your Wetware.
Java for Dummies is actually pretty good as well.
-----side note
The first computer “bug” was actually at Harvard University when a moth got stuck in some wiring on a giant room size computer. They had to ‘de-bug’ the problem.
)
I’m more into Social Robotics and AI, so it really doesn’t pertain to FIRST much.