Since 1970, Robert C. "Uncle Bob" Martin has worked as a software professional and as an international software consultant. He is the founder and president of Object Mentor, Inc., a group of experienced consultants who mentor their clients throughout the world in C++, Java, C#, Ruby, OO, Design Patterns, UML, Agile Methodologies, and eXtreme programming.

Even terrible code can work. However, if the code isn't clean, it might knock a development team to its knees. Every year, countless hours and substantial resources are wasted due to poorly designed code. But this does not have to be the case.

With Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, noted software expert Robert C. Martin introduces a breakthrough approach. Martin, who has helped bring agile principles from a practitioner's perspective to tens of thousands of programmers, has collaborated with his colleagues at Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code "on the fly" into a book that will instill in you the values of software craftsmanship and make you a better programmer but only if you work at it.

What will you be doing for a living? You will be reading a lot of code. And you'll be asked to consider what's right about the code and what's wrong with it. More importantly, you will be pushed to reconsider your professional beliefs and dedication to your trade.

The Clean Code is divided into three sections. The first discusses the fundamentals, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second section contains a series of case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in code cleaning, changing a problematic code base into one that is sound and efficient. The third section is the payoff: a single chapter offering a collection of heuristics and "smells" discovered while developing the case studies. As a result, we have created a knowledge base that outlines how we think when we write, read, and clean code.

Readers will get knowledge from this book:

• What is the difference between good and terrible code?
• How to build good code and convert bad code to good code
• How to come up with good names, functions, objects, and classes
• Code formatting for optimum readability
• How may proper error handling be implemented without obscuring code logic?
• How to perform unit testing and test-driven development
• What "smells" and heuristics can aid in the detection of faulty code?

This book is required reading for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst who wants to write better code. It is regarded as one of the best books on computer programming.

Author: Robert C. Martin

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 4286 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #6,564 in Books

#3 in Software Design & Engineering

#3 in Software Testing

#4 in Microsoft Programming (Books)

Dartmouth College's Thomas H. Cormen is a Professor of Computer Science and the former Director of the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric. He coauthored the main textbook on computer algorithms, Introduction to Algorithms, with Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein (third edition, MIT Press, 2009). Charles E. Leiserson is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ronald L. Rivest is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Clifford Stein is a Columbia University Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Some algorithm books are rigorous but incomplete, whereas others cover a lot of ground but lack rigor. Introduction to Algorithms is the only book that combines rigor with breadth. Introduction to Algorithms covers a wide range of algorithms in depth while making their design and analysis accessible to readers of all levels. Each chapter is very self-contained and can be used as a standalone unit of study. The algorithms are given in English and in pseudocode that anyone who has done some programming may understand. The explanations have been kept simple while maintaining depth of coverage and mathematical rigor.

The first edition became a standard reference for professionals as well as a frequently utilized work in institutions around the world. New chapters in the second edition covered the role of algorithms, probabilistic analysis and randomized algorithms, and linear programming. The third edition has been thoroughly edited and updated. It features two whole new chapters on van Emde Boas trees and multithreaded algorithms, significant updates to the chapter on recurrence (now titled "Divide-and-Conquer"), and an appendix on matrices. It includes an improved handling of dynamic programming and greedy algorithms, as well as a new concept of edge-based flow in the flow network material. This version includes many new exercises and puzzles. The international paperback edition is no longer accessible; nevertheless, the hardcover edition is available everywhere.

Author: Clifford Stein, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest and Thomas H. Cormen

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-fourth-Thomas-Cormen/dp/026204630X/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 2106 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #24,861 in Books

#2 in Data Structure and Algorithms

#5 in Computer Algorithms

#67 in Computer Science (Books)

Harold Abelson is a member of the IEEE and the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He founded Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the Free Software Foundation. He is also a co-chair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology. Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering Gerald Jay Sussman teaches at MIT.

Over the last decade, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has had a significant impact on computer science curricula. This long-awaited edition includes updates to the whole text. Most of the key programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, have new implementations, and the authors have added numerous small improvements that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new subject has been introduced that underlines the importance of several techniques to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming with lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order graphics methods and stream processing applications in numerical programming, as well as several new tasks. Furthermore, all of the programs have been rewritten to run in any IEEE-compliant Scheme implementation.

Author: Julie Sussman, Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 554 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #55,761 in Books

#82 in Software Development (Books)

#84 in Computer Programming Languages

#113 in Computer Software (Books)

Since 1970, Robert C. Martin ("Uncle Bob") has worked as a programmer. He is the founder and president of Object Mentor, Inc., a global group of highly experienced software developers and managers who specialize in assisting businesses in completing projects. Object Mentor provides major organizations across the world with process improvement consulting, object-oriented software design consultation, training, and skill development services.

Programmers who persevere and succeed in the face of constant uncertainty and pressure have one thing in common: they care strongly about the discipline of creating software. They approach it as a craft. They are specialists.

Legendary software guru Robert C. Martin explains the disciplines, techniques, tools, and practices of real software craftsmanship in The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers. This book is jam-packed with useful advice on topics ranging from estimating and coding to refactoring and testing. It's about more than technique: it's about mindset. Martin demonstrates how to approach software development with honor, self-respect, and pride; how to work well and cleanly; how to communicate and estimate faithfully; how to face difficult decisions with clarity and honesty; and how to recognize that deep knowledge comes with a responsibility to act.

Readers will discover:

• What does it mean to be a true software craftsman?
• How to handle disagreement, tight deadlines, and unreasonable managers
• How to Break Through Writer's Block and Get Into the Flow of Coding
• How to Deal with Constant Pressure and Avoid Burnout
• How to combine long-held beliefs with new development paradigms
• How to organize your time effectively while avoiding blind alleys, marshes, bogs, and swamps
• How to Create Environments for Programmers and Teams to Succeed
• When and how to use the word "No"
• When to say "Yes" and what it actually implies

Great software is something to behold: it is powerful, elegant, and functional, and it is a joy to work with as both a developer and a user. Machines do not write great software. It is written by professionals who are dedicated to their craft. The Clean Coder will assist you in becoming one of them—and earning the pride and fulfillment that only they have. It is among the best books on computer programming.

Author: Robert Martin

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Coder-Conduct-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 1168 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #93,850 in Books

#60 in Software Design & Engineering

#115 in Microsoft Programming (Books)

#145 in Software Development (Books)

Steve McConnell is widely regarded as a leading author and voice in the development world. He is the Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software and was the lead developer of Construx Estimate and SPC Estimate Professional, which won the Productivity Award from Software Development magazine. He is the author of several publications, including Code Complete and Rapid Development, both of which received the Jolt Award from Software Development magazine.

Steve McConnell's original code full has been helping developers produce better software for more than a decade and is widely regarded as one of the best practical guides to programming. Code Complete has been completely updated and reworked to include cutting-edge approaches as well as hundreds of new code samples showing the art and science of software development. McConnell synthesizes the most effective methodologies and must-know concepts from research, academia, and everyday commercial experience, capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice. This book will inform and inspire your thinking—and help you produce the best quality code—regardless of your experience level, development environment, or project size.

Discover the time-tested approaches and strategies that will assist you:

• Create with the least amount of complication and the most amount of ingenuity.
• Benefit from collaborative development by using defensive programming techniques to reduce and eliminate errors.
• Take advantage of opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do so carefully.
• Use appropriate construction practices for your project.
• Troubleshoot issues promptly and effectively.
• Resolve important construction concerns as soon as possible and appropriately.
• Build quality into your project's inception, middle, and end.

Author: Steve McConnell

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 1015 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #44,860 in Books

#1 in Client-Server Networking Systems

#13 in Enterprise Applications

#21 in Software Design & Engineering

Dr. Erich Gamma is the technical director of Object Technology International's Software Technology Center in Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Richard Helm works in the IBM Consulting Group's Object Technology Practice Group in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Ralph Johnson is a member of the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

John Vlissides works as a research scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York. He has worked as a designer, implementer, researcher, lecturer, and consultant in the field of object-oriented technology for over a decade.

Four top-tier designers give a portfolio of simple and brief answers to often occuring design problems, capturing a wealth of knowledge in the design of object-oriented software. Previously unknown, these 23 patterns enable designers to develop more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to reinvent the wheel.

The authors begin by defining patterns and explaining how they might aid in the design of object-oriented software. They then go on to name, explain, assess, and categorize recurring designs in object-oriented systems in a methodical manner. Among the best books on computer programming, Design Patterns will teach you how these key patterns fit into the software development process and how to use them to solve your own design challenges the most efficiently.

Each pattern specifies the conditions under which it is relevant, when it can be used in light of other design limitations, and the repercussions and trade-offs of incorporating the pattern into a broader design. All patterns are derived from real-world examples and compiled from real-world systems. Each design also provides code that shows how to implement it in object-oriented programming languages such as C++ or Smalltalk.

Author: Richard Helm, John Vlissides, Ralph Johnson and Erich Gamma

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 1988 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #17,344 in Books

#1 in Software Reuse

#3 in Object-Oriented Software Design

#3 in Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition

Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt are well-known leaders in the software development community around the world. They counsel and give talks all around the world. They co-founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, which publishes award-winning, cutting-edge books for software developers. They were two of the Agile Manifesto's creators.

The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those rare technical books that you'll read, re-read, and re-read over and over again. Whether you're new to the field or an experienced practitioner, you'll always leave with new ideas.

In 1999, Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt published the first edition of this influential book to assist their clients in creating better software and rediscovering the joy of coding. These lessons have assisted a generation of programmers in examining the very essence of software development, regardless of language, framework, or methodology, and the Pragmatic philosophy has spawned hundreds of books, screencasts, and audio books, as well as thousands of careers and success stories.

This updated edition, twenty years later, re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer. Personal responsibility and professional advancement are discussed, as well as architectural strategies for keeping your code flexible and easy to change and reuse. If you read this book, you will learn how to:

• Fight software rot
• Learn continuously
• Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge
• Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code
• Harness the power of basic tools
• Avoid programming by coincidence
• Learn real requirements
• Solve the underlying problems of concurrent code
• Guard against security vulnerabilities
• Build teams of Pragmatic Programmers
• Take responsibility for your work and career
• Test ruthlessly and effectively, including property-based testing
• Implement the Pragmatic Starter Kit
• Delight your users

The Pragmatic Programmer, written as a series of self-contained parts and filled with old and new anecdotes, intelligent examples, and engaging analogies, highlights the best approaches and significant hazards of many different elements of software development. Use these skills on a daily basis, whether you're a rookie coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager in charge of software projects, and you'll immediately witness increases in personal productivity, accuracy, and job happiness. You'll gain skills and establish habits and attitudes that will help you succeed in your work in the long run.

Author: Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-journey-mastery-Anniversary/dp/0135957052

Ratings: 4.8 out of 5 stars (from 1872 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #7,286 in Books

#4 in Software Design & Engineering

#5 in Software Testing

#8 in Computer Programming Languages

ThoughtWorks' Chief Scientist is Martin Fowler. He identifies himself as "an author, lecturer, consultant, and overall software development loud-mouth." Fowler focuses on corporate software design, investigating what makes a strong design and what procedures are required to produce one.

For more than two decades, experienced programmers all over the world have depended on Martin Fowler's Refactoring to improve the design of existing code, improve software maintainability, and make current code easier to understand.

This much-anticipated new version has been completely updated to reflect significant changes in the programming landscape. Refactoring, Second Edition offers an updated collection of refactorings, JavaScript code examples, and new functional examples of refactoring without classes.

This edition, like the first, covers what refactoring is, why you should refactor, how to spot code that requires restructuring, and how to do it successfully in any language.

• Understand the refactoring process and general principles.
• Apply effective refactorings quickly to make a program easier to understand and update.
• Recognize "poor odors" in code that indicate refactoring chances.
• Investigate the refactorings, which are each accompanied by explanations, motivation, mechanics, and basic examples.
• Create strong tests for your refactorings.
• Recognize tradeoffs and refactoring roadblocks.

Author: Martin Fowler

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Improving-Existing-Addison-Wesley-Signature/dp/0134757599

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 695 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #25,507 in Books

#8 in Object-Oriented Software Design

#12 in Object-Oriented Design

#12 in Software Design & Engineering

For the past 25 years, Charles Petzold has been blogging on Windows programming. Petzold, a Windows Pioneer Award winner, is the author of several books, including the classic Programming Windows, the critically acclaimed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, Programming Windows Phone 7, and more than a dozen others.

What is the connection between flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws and computers? CODE demonstrates how cleverly humans modify language and invent new ways of interacting with one another. And, via CODE, we can see how human inventiveness and the need to communicate have pushed technology advances over the last two centuries. The book is considered one of the best books on computer programming.

Author Charles Petzold creates an intriguing tale for everyone who has ever wondered about the secret inner lives of computers and other smart technologies using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code.

It's a cleverly depicted and easily understood story—and along the way, you'll realize you've gained a true context for comprehending today's world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. CODE will enchant you—and possibly even awaken the technophile within you—regardless of your level of technological savvy.

Author: Charles Petzold

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735611319/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 1890 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #28,463 in Books

#5 in Machine Theory (Books)

#14 in Software Design & Engineering

#28 in Microsoft Programming (Books)

Robert Sedgewick has been a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University since 1985, where he also served as the Department of Computer Science's inaugural Chairman. He has held visiting research positions at Xerox PARC, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and INRIA, and he is a member of Adobe Systems' board of directors.

Kevin Wayne is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Princeton University, where he has been teaching since 1998. Cornell University awarded him a Ph.D. in operations research and industrial engineering.

This fourth edition of Algorithms by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne is the premier textbook on algorithms today, and it is extensively used in colleges and institutions around the world. This book reviews the most essential computer algorithms in use today and provides a comprehensive explanation of data structures and algorithms for sorting, searching, graph processing, and string processing—including fifty techniques that every programmer should be familiar with. New Java implementations are written in an easy modular programming manner in this edition, with all code exposed to the reader and ready to use.

The algorithms in this book represent a body of knowledge that has become indispensable over the last 50 years, not just for professional programmers and computer science students, but for any student with an interest in science, mathematics, or engineering, not to mention students who use computation in the liberal arts.

Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne are working to create a modern method to information dissemination that completely embraces technology, allowing individuals all over the world to explore new ways of learning and teaching. By combining their textbook, online content, and MOOC, all of which are cutting-edge, they have created a one-of-a-kind resource that substantially enhances the breadth and depth of the educational experience.

Author: Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/032157351X/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 684 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #104,304 in Books

#16 in Computer Programming Structured Design

#20 in Computer Algorithms

#38 in Programming Algorithms