Hacker Remix

Ask HN: What's the best book you've read regarding software development?

39 points by nadis 4 days ago | 39 comments

Today's thread on the Debugging book made me realize there are likely great books related to software development that I've never even heard of, never mind read. I'd like to find (and eventually read) them.

Jtsummers 4 days ago

Kind of hard to search for because the titles are all over the place, but here are some of the past book discussions I've found that had a lot of comments and good suggestions and discussion.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41387062

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35929112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32130578

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29498220

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29306651

muzani 4 days ago

Thanks for the references. I remember there was a Show HN that actually combed through these threads and made book recommendations based on how good someone is at making book recommendations. But many of those links no longer work.

swah 2 days ago

Perplexity:

Based on the discussions from the provided Hacker News threads, here is a list of ten notable books recommended by users, particularly in the context of software engineering and programming:

## Top Ten Recommended Books

- *The Pragmatic Programmer* by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas A classic in software development, this book offers practical advice and principles for programmers.

- *Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship* by Robert C. Martin This book emphasizes writing clean, maintainable code and has become a staple in programming literature.

- *A Philosophy of Software Design* by John Ousterhout This book provides insights into software design principles and the importance of simplicity in design.

- *Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software* by Eric Evans A foundational text for understanding complex software systems and how to manage them effectively.

- *Designing Data-Intensive Applications* by Martin Kleppmann This book covers the principles of designing applications that handle large volumes of data efficiently.

- *Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code* by Martin Fowler Focuses on the process of refactoring code to improve its structure without changing its functionality.

- *Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction* by Steve McConnell This comprehensive guide covers best practices in software construction and coding techniques.

- *Effective Java* by Joshua Bloch A must-read for Java developers, this book provides best practices for writing robust Java code.

- *The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering* by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. A classic work discussing the complexities and challenges of managing software projects.

- *Programming Pearls* by Jon Bentley This book presents programming problems and solutions that enhance problem-solving skills and algorithmic thinking.

These books are highly regarded within the programming community and cover a range of topics from coding practices to software design philosophies, making them valuable resources for both new and experienced developers.

Citations: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41387062 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35929112 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32130578 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41387062 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35929112 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32130578 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29498220 [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29306651

muzani 2 days ago

This sounds like a hallucination tbh. If you look from the other lists, something like Clean Code is hardly recommended and gets criticized quite a bit. It's not something that stands to the test of time.

It's not a bad book, but it's the type of book a good list in 2025 should filter for.

nadis 8 hours ago

I tend to agree -- it's hard to say without looking at the data more closely but the list is a little outside the scope and intent of my question. It's also possible I could've asked my "ask" more clearly!

I specifically was curious what the best books the people on HN read and was trying to get at the impact of a book on the person more so than just wanting a list of 10 frequently recommended books on programming according to Perplexity's summary of HN. Experimenting with AI is great, but in this case was looking for a more human and individualistic perspective.

fabianholzer 2 days ago

I assume the "Perplexity" refers to the LLM that generated the list? As far as I can tell, none of the listed books are hallucinated though.

But I completey agree with your take on Martins Clean Code book.

muzani 1 day ago

I mean it's not actually summarizing the threads. It's glancing over and then giving itd own personal opinion.

nadis 4 days ago

Oh wow, thank you for sharing these past threads. I'd tried searching but didn't have much success before posting my ask so really appreciate you bringing these to light.

jjice 4 days ago

My personal favorites:

- Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (Martin Fowler) - early-mid 2000s and it stays valuable to this day. It's nice to have a formalized view of concepts you know in practice.

- Clean Architecture (Robert Martin) - Great application architecture concepts being formalized

- Designing Data Intensive Applications (Martin Kleppmann) - Fantastic perspective on your application's data. This is probably the most recommended book I've seen on Hacker News.

- SQL Performance Explained (Markus Winand) - Just a killer, concise book to make you truly understand basic DB performance, specifically with indexes. I've met so many developers (myself included before this book) who thought any index will work and then they'd just wing it. Your RDBMS has tools for finding the best optimizations in your queries and you should use them. Your indexes are also more picky than you may think, but they're also incredibly fast if you place them correctly. It's a lot easier to see once you understand.

nadis 4 days ago

Great reading recs, thank you. Really appreciate the context as well for each. I'm familiar with a couple of these (not all!) and am excited to dig in.

skydhash 23 hours ago

The C programming language (ansi edition) - I had it before even leaning how to program properly. The explanations was so clear you could work out the examples with pencil and papers

Mystical man-month and the pragmatic programmer. The former gave insight about managing a team, the other about managing yourself.

Currently I’m reading:

Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns by Vladimir Khorikok

Designing Data Intensive Application by Martin Kleppman

And very recently completed Learning Domain-Driven Design by Vlad Khononov

I think the three are quite good too

nadis 8 hours ago

This is such a comprehensive list, thank you! For current reads, are there any you're especially enjoying?

schappim 4 days ago

When I was at university Getting Real was a big influence[1].

[1] https://books.37signals.com/8/getting-real

nadis 4 days ago

This is a classic, but it's been a while since I last saw this! Thanks for sharing.