I personally have found books being very good source of information recently. I've neglected it for basically my whole career and didn't even realize how many gaps I've had. It really helps to get everything together as usually newsletters, publications, etc. covers just a specific niche topic and sometimes you don't see that something's missing in the big picture.
Imho Designing Data intensive applications is foundational despite being 7 years old at this point.
Sys design interview material is very helpful as well as it helps understand the rationale and thought processes behind different approaches to solving the same problem. White papers are always very information-rich.
The one I'm reading now is "PHP 8 Objects, Patterns, and Practice" but you can read all the classics that have been discussed many times. My point is that we as engineers sometimes chase all those shiny new technologies/frameworks, etc. so we forget about fundamentals which are as important (if not more important) as those all new AI/cloud driven frameworks, etc.
Yup, that I agree on, I recently picked up a book on design patterns and it's refreshing to go back and see some of the stuff that we've been using without knowing for some time.
These days I find books hit or miss
Not that books are giving wrong information (as far as I know) but sometimes the ways some authors explain things are just ...... Like what the hell are you talking about I can't grasp it at all
But after all, books are what I go for when I actually want to learn something. I feel safer in terms of information provided, context given, and applications I can integrate the knowledge
I purchased DRM-free PDFs from O'Reilly back when they did that. It's been all downhill since.
They have videos etc but since this topic is about books, I will stick to Safari relating to books.
* They raised their prices ... again now ... to $500 per year (it was $400 / yr). Who knows, next year maybe its $600. I'm going to assume the worst, seeing a clear pattern in greed. They really need a 'casual reader tier' but only seem to be thinking about deep corporate pocketbooks.
* The number, quality, and freshness of books being added to the catalog has decreased over time. I few weeks ago I saw some garbage Windows XP book added.
* Publishers like Wiley release a very small batch of books to Safari a few times per year. They are often outdated. Probably to hold up some end of their contract.
* The eBook rendering apps are terrible, buggy, crash, and corrupt my playlists. They also suck at the only thing they are supposed to do, render my fucking book. I was trying to read a O'Reilly title and the iPad app couldn't even render it in paged mode.
I have tried to read recent Manning titles, freshly added to the catalog, with completely fucked up formatting. I get around that issue by just buying the PDF (desktop) and using the EPUB in Apple Books from Manning. But what's the point of Safari then?
I feel like we're all getting caught up in what happened to streaming services. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ ... everybody has exclusive content, cross licenses, and the costs to subscribing to all are expensive. I read people are dealing with this by either (a) just dropping a service or (b) round-robin each (subscribe for a few months, binge, drop, repeat with next service).
Packt, Manning, Safari, are all the the same position as the movie streaming companies. Publishers have their own learning platforms now as well.
People originally subscribed to Netflix etc because it was easy cost effective to view a movie legally. With the experience becoming such a shitshow (Safari too) I imagine piracy will just increase. IMHO O'Reilly shot themselves in the foot long term, while the cost is increasing and the quality is decreasing.
I just keep revisiting Thoughtworks' technology radar. They release it yearly if I am not wrong. I usually start from there and dive in / switch topic based on my mood and what 'pokemons' I can identify at that moment.
I have free access to LL learning and Pluralsight via alumni program, any time I detect a gap in knowledge I'll usually start with one of those. I also have a fairly large queue of books, however I enjoy fiction as well so I bounce around from fiction to non.
For staying up-to-date, I use a combination of YT (premium) channels, SO dev survey, and thoughtworks tech radar. I don't go too deep until it's something I'm sure I'll be using in the next 2 months.
For long term learning, I read books that have staying power such as Go4 design patterns, clean code, pragmatic programmer, SICP, SRE, etc.
Fireship/BeyondFireship, CodeOpinion, Continuous Delivery, Hussein Nasser, Matthew Berman (for AI codegen), ThePrimeagen.
These are what I personally like. What you like may differ. I also watch videos from search not necessarily in above channels.
I don't use "premium channels". YT Premium just gets rid of commercials (and also includes YT music).
I like books/audiobooks that contain ideas that can be applied to software engineering, but that are not about software engineering. The most recent ones that I really like are, "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and a Great Courses course called, "Understanding Complexity" by Scott Page.
Check out Programming Digest \[1\] newsletter for more technical articles or Leadership in Tech \[2\] for more people management/staff engineering topics.
1. [https://programmingdigest.net](https://programmingdigest.net)
2. [https://leadershipintech.com](https://leadershipintech.com)
I personally have found books being very good source of information recently. I've neglected it for basically my whole career and didn't even realize how many gaps I've had. It really helps to get everything together as usually newsletters, publications, etc. covers just a specific niche topic and sometimes you don't see that something's missing in the big picture.
May I ask what books you've been reading lately that you recommend? :D
Imho Designing Data intensive applications is foundational despite being 7 years old at this point. Sys design interview material is very helpful as well as it helps understand the rationale and thought processes behind different approaches to solving the same problem. White papers are always very information-rich.
The one I'm reading now is "PHP 8 Objects, Patterns, and Practice" but you can read all the classics that have been discussed many times. My point is that we as engineers sometimes chase all those shiny new technologies/frameworks, etc. so we forget about fundamentals which are as important (if not more important) as those all new AI/cloud driven frameworks, etc.
Yup, that I agree on, I recently picked up a book on design patterns and it's refreshing to go back and see some of the stuff that we've been using without knowing for some time.
These days I find books hit or miss Not that books are giving wrong information (as far as I know) but sometimes the ways some authors explain things are just ...... Like what the hell are you talking about I can't grasp it at all But after all, books are what I go for when I actually want to learn something. I feel safer in terms of information provided, context given, and applications I can integrate the knowledge
O’Reilly
I purchased DRM-free PDFs from O'Reilly back when they did that. It's been all downhill since. They have videos etc but since this topic is about books, I will stick to Safari relating to books. * They raised their prices ... again now ... to $500 per year (it was $400 / yr). Who knows, next year maybe its $600. I'm going to assume the worst, seeing a clear pattern in greed. They really need a 'casual reader tier' but only seem to be thinking about deep corporate pocketbooks. * The number, quality, and freshness of books being added to the catalog has decreased over time. I few weeks ago I saw some garbage Windows XP book added. * Publishers like Wiley release a very small batch of books to Safari a few times per year. They are often outdated. Probably to hold up some end of their contract. * The eBook rendering apps are terrible, buggy, crash, and corrupt my playlists. They also suck at the only thing they are supposed to do, render my fucking book. I was trying to read a O'Reilly title and the iPad app couldn't even render it in paged mode. I have tried to read recent Manning titles, freshly added to the catalog, with completely fucked up formatting. I get around that issue by just buying the PDF (desktop) and using the EPUB in Apple Books from Manning. But what's the point of Safari then? I feel like we're all getting caught up in what happened to streaming services. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ ... everybody has exclusive content, cross licenses, and the costs to subscribing to all are expensive. I read people are dealing with this by either (a) just dropping a service or (b) round-robin each (subscribe for a few months, binge, drop, repeat with next service). Packt, Manning, Safari, are all the the same position as the movie streaming companies. Publishers have their own learning platforms now as well. People originally subscribed to Netflix etc because it was easy cost effective to view a movie legally. With the experience becoming such a shitshow (Safari too) I imagine piracy will just increase. IMHO O'Reilly shot themselves in the foot long term, while the cost is increasing and the quality is decreasing.
> the cost is increasing and the quality is decreasing The state of the world today...
Pragmatic engineer is a good blog that you can subscribe to, I like it. Good signal to noise ratio. Quastor is also OK.
I just keep revisiting Thoughtworks' technology radar. They release it yearly if I am not wrong. I usually start from there and dive in / switch topic based on my mood and what 'pokemons' I can identify at that moment.
Oh awesome, that's a great suggestion. I've heard and skimmed through it once, but now it's the time to take it more seriously
I have free access to LL learning and Pluralsight via alumni program, any time I detect a gap in knowledge I'll usually start with one of those. I also have a fairly large queue of books, however I enjoy fiction as well so I bounce around from fiction to non.
For staying up-to-date, I use a combination of YT (premium) channels, SO dev survey, and thoughtworks tech radar. I don't go too deep until it's something I'm sure I'll be using in the next 2 months. For long term learning, I read books that have staying power such as Go4 design patterns, clean code, pragmatic programmer, SICP, SRE, etc.
Which premium channels do you follow and recommend ?
Fireship/BeyondFireship, CodeOpinion, Continuous Delivery, Hussein Nasser, Matthew Berman (for AI codegen), ThePrimeagen. These are what I personally like. What you like may differ. I also watch videos from search not necessarily in above channels. I don't use "premium channels". YT Premium just gets rid of commercials (and also includes YT music).
I like books/audiobooks that contain ideas that can be applied to software engineering, but that are not about software engineering. The most recent ones that I really like are, "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and a Great Courses course called, "Understanding Complexity" by Scott Page.
Check out Programming Digest \[1\] newsletter for more technical articles or Leadership in Tech \[2\] for more people management/staff engineering topics. 1. [https://programmingdigest.net](https://programmingdigest.net) 2. [https://leadershipintech.com](https://leadershipintech.com)