Book Recommendations

General Discussions
#1

I thought a thread for book recommendations would be nice, anything programming / game related really.

Refactoring - improving the design of existing code. Lots of good methods and techniques for refactoring code into nicer forms. Has the handy side effect that you’ll get to put common names on the refactorings you’ve already found yourself as well as learning new ones.

Test Driven Development: By Example. Good overview of doing TDD without getting bogged down with trivial details.

Working Effectively With Legacy Code. The second book shows how TDD should work, but this book actually shows you how to make it practical, especially when dealing which a whole bunch of non-TDD code.

The Pragmatic Programmer. Which I’ll leave Kev to describe, because I’ve only got a few chapters in myself…

Anyone else? :slight_smile:

#2

Developing Games in Java , David Brackeen - my absolute favorite, found this too be a great way to start game developing in Java, very good for gaming with java2d and general basic gaming stuff.

Programming Game AI by Example - nice stuff on gaming AI, main plus of this book is it has nice explanation and example code to shows you how to implement the stuff, a bit basic though.

Focus On 3D Terrain Programming - Good Intro to terrain programming again a bit basic but very good if you know nothing about terrain, writing style is very simple and easy to understand and doesn’t overload you with horrible maths that some other terrain books do.

Game Programming Gems 1-6 - famous book series, more a collection of great articles than books, contain some great in depth articles on how to implement various aspects of games and algorithms. Articles mostly by people high up in the gaming industry and stuff you see in proper AAA games. Recommend you look at contents of the books (on its website) to see what articles are in there before you buy any as they are quite pricey.

#3

The Pragmatic Programmer is a great book for giving you practical suggestions on how to make your everyday programming existence more effective and more enjoyable. It’s especially good if you’re working in a semi-formal environment.

I’m a big fan of any Joel writes - he’s both brilliantly correct and funny at the same time. That’d be books Joel On Software and User Interface Design for Programmers. The UI book in particular is very good for games development in that it approaches the subject by looking at what makes anything approachable by a user - rather than specifically enterprise application. Well worth the read!

There’s also a fantastic project management book that Blah^3 recommends, can’t remember the name. Have a picture of a gun pointed at a foot on the front - maybe he can give the name etc. It’s probably the best management book I’ve read from a developers POV.

Kev

#4

Code Complete by Steve McConnell is another very good non-language specific book on the practice of programming. It goes into a huge amount of detail (there is an entire chapter on how to name variables) but it’s all useful detail. There will be things in it that you know already but there is so much that there will also be things you don’t know and things you hadn’t thought to question. I wish that I had read it when I came out of University cos there is a lot of stuff in there that I learned the hard way.

I would suggest that it would be a good book to read straight out of university, whereas it seems to me that The Pragmatic Programmer is something that you maybe need a few years of professional experience to really appreciate.

#5

How To Fail At Software Development by Arthur Griffith.

Cas :slight_smile:

#6

I think a number of people in various places I have worked have read that book, and thought it was a guide on how to develop software instead of how not to develop it. Never read it myself mind … I’m already an expert in this regard :slight_smile:

Endolf

#7

Joking aside, it’s a wonderful book :slight_smile:

Kev

#8

I have to agree, Joel writes very well.

Rapid Development

#9

from the same publisher as the game programming gems; AI Programming Wisdom series is a brilliant series on AI in games. Its full of articles/solutions to all kinds of different AI challenges written by AI developers, and its an excellent read.

Game Design Complete is a very pragmatic book on Game Design. Its quite recent and well written, and it gives an excellent insight in game design :slight_smile:

#10

I only used one piece of information from Game Design Complete: that Windows XP Home has the Program Files directory unwritable by non-administrators by default so that you’re supposed to save files to the My Documents directory.