In the age of IT technology, a lot of pseudo-scientific literature has appeared. Because of the rich choice sometimes it is difficult to understand the quality of the material, and there is no one to ask for advice.

The industry is highly applied, which means that it is primarily experience – personal and collective – that counts. If you don’t have any experience, take some “Python for Kids”, or anything in JS, or SHENZHEN I/O for that matter, and read it, try to write simple code, upload it, check it, debug it. At the same time try to get a job (the goal is to start working on real tasks).

Engineers who chose the field “for love” rather than career potential have a special, distorted computationally-formalistic mindset. It is definitely useful for solving engineering problems, but often deplete the ability to communicate with other people (who have unclear internal state, no documented API, and it’s not clear what they need in general). That is why I would recommend “successful IT people” to read texts of general humanitarian orientation: Plato and Aristotle, national classics, continental and English philosophers and sociologists from the 17th century onwards. At a comfortable depth, from “sci-fi pop”/historiographers to primary sources. In the name of compensating for the almost unavoidable, unfortunately, personal deformation.

All literature falls into three categories: professional literature, books from which you can learn something for your own development, and fiction.

From the field of professional literature one of the most valuable books for me was “Programming the Collective Mind” by Toby Segaran: a very large number of useful examples and a lively style put this book at the top of the rating. Also one of the most important works from this field for me is the Java series by Kay S. Horstmann, thanks to which I managed to get into the Java language. I can’t help but think of “Head First. Design Patterns”, which presents the basics of development in an unusual form – design patterns. And if speaking about professional books I will never forget, the first place goes to “Data Abstraction and Problem Solving with C++: Walls & Mirrors” by F. Carrano and T. Henry: at that time this work helped me not only to write my term paper, but to decide my further career path.

If we are talking about business literature, the must-read here is “The Brain. Instructions for Use. How to use your capabilities to the maximum and without overloading” by David Rock. The book helped me to understand how I should structure my work process in order to get the most out of myself.

“Lean Production. How to get rid of waste and get your company to thrive.” James Woomek, Daniel Jones. A book about lean manufacturing, how to eliminate waste in your team, and the great thing about it is that it is written from a practical perspective.

“Purpose. The Process of Continuous Improvement.” Jeff Cox, Eliyahu Goldratt. A business novel about Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints. An interesting presentation that allows you to understand where you have conflicts (limitations) that prevent your team from reaching its full potential.

“Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints: A Systems Approach to Continuous Improvement.” William Detmer. A follow-up book (not literally) to the previous book, but no longer in the form of a novel, but a serious book with practical applications.

“Flow: the psychology of optimal experience.” Mihai Csiksentmihaii. All the developers we work with are creative children who need to be protected. The book talks about the state of flow, how to achieve it, and why.

“The Kamikaze Way. Edward Yordon.” A book about surviving a hopeless project and getting it done (or figuring out in time to drop it)