Revisit: What Books Are Within Your Reach?

What titles are close to you for reference purposes? Here's my list.

February 23rd, 2010 at 6:00am — Comments: (0) — By: Jonathan Danylko — Tags: Developers

How many of your books have changed since my last post? I'm sure that since 2007 your library of reference books should've changed a little.

A while back, I wrote a post about what books are in your library that are within reach while you develop. I figured now would be a good time to update my post.

Why do we care?

The books that you have in your library are valuable to you. You know your strengths and weaknesses and what you need to reference quickly in case you suffer from CRS (Can't Remember Stuff).

That's why most developers keep a (small?) stack of books near them strictly for reference purposes. Heck, I still keep a list of reference books nearby just in case my fingers aren't fast enough for Google.

Another reason is a coo to the authors of these books. These books are literally standing the test of time since they were published and they provide me with solid information that I need at a moments notice. The information is organized properly and allows me to find something relatively quick.

The books on your shelf within arms reach is an author's dream. Any author would be ecstatic to hear that you are using their book almost every single day (which is another reason I write this post).

On with the list

NOTE: The list of books below are affiliate links.

• O'Reilly Pocket References
  
  
  • Oracle PL/SQL Pocket Reference (Hey...it's a big language).
  • Oracle SQL Tuning Pocket Reference
  • JavaScript Pocket Reference (2nd Edition)
  • UML 2.0 Pocket Reference
  • CSS Pocket Reference (I guess I'll need to update this when 3.0 comes out)
  • Regular Expression Pocket Reference
  • SQL Pocket Guide
    
    I have to stop and discuss this title. Not only does this title provide the SQL for almost all of the major players in the database industry, it describes the differences between each database engine and their differences in SQL syntax. For example, what are the options  for a SELECT statement in mySQL as opposed to Oracle? This book would tell you.
     
  • C# Language Pocket Reference
  • C# 3.0 Pocket Reference
  • Linq Pocket Reference
  • XML Pocket Reference
  • XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference
     
• Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
   
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
   
• Design Patterns in C#
   
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
   
• Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise

Who knows? Within three more years, I may have an entirely different library altogether.

What books do you have in your library that are within arms reach?

Are there other books you would recommend for a developer library?

Write your comments below.