• February 4

10 favorite software development books

Hello, for today’s iDevBlogADay entry I want to share my top 10 books in the topic of software development/game development. I was tempted to put “Game Development” as a title,  but the most useful books that I have read, are not explicitly related to Game Development ( still they cover lot’s and lot’s of useful techniques that can be applied to that specific topic ).

I’ve been trying to learn more and more to improve my engineering/developer skills, I’ve read a ton of books… but here I present you my 10 favorites in no particular order, they all have impacted me in different but positive ways! :D

Clean Code

by Robert C. Martin

This is a great book, it covers a lot of information according to the author personal experience and opinions. I haven’t seen other books covering refactoring and coding style in such a way, and you can always agree or disagree with the author, but it’s still a great resource.


Code Complete

by Steve McConnel

As the Amazon description says “you’ll find a wealth of practical suggestions and methods for strengthening your software design/development skills”. I think this book is a great read, and developers of all levels can learn a lot from it. I haven’t stopped learning from this book, and every time I read some parts I happen to find new interesting stuff.

Effective C++ & More Effective C++

by Scott Meyers

This books are totally crucial for any serious C++ developer out there. They cover a lot of useful techniques about improving your C++ skills and understanding the true power that the language offers. They are also the kind of books that you can use as a references and not necessarily read in a specific order.



Effective STL

by Scott Meyers

If you plan to use the C++ Standard Template Library, seriously, read this book… or at least browse it a bit! It contains lot’s of useful information, and it will certainly help you to understand how the STL really works behind scenes.



Game Programming Gems Series

The Game Programming Gems are a must have/read for any Game Dev, they just have so much information. People from all over the Game Development industry write articles in this book… ID Software, Blizzard, Bungie ? You got it :)





The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

by Andrew Hunt

I think all Programmers should read this book. It will certainly influence you in someway or another, and although there’s a lot of philosophical discussion about programming, it does also contain very practical advice. A must have.



Introduction to Algorithms

by Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest, and Clifford Stein

This book is my favorite reference on algorithms. Whenever I want to consult or recall how certain algorithm worked/performed I like to grab this book.



The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses

by Jesse Schell

What a wonderful game for a Game Developer, specially if you are a solo (aka do it all for yourself ) gamedev. This book covers game design in a nicely structured toolbox, each “Game Design Pattern” ( if you can call it like that) is presented by the author as a “lens” to apply to your games.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

by Frederik P. Brooks

This book is a classic about software management. It’s quite dated, but you would be surprised to see that software management problems have not changed that much through time.



Large-Scale C++ Software Design

by John Lakos

This book is quite dated, but it covers project physical organization with quite a bit of detail. A lot of the techniques presented will still work on today’s projects, a great book to read if you are developing large games or other complex projects in C++.




Hope you guys like the selection :) , you are welcome to comment if you think I’ve missed some critical piece of lecture ;)




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Comments

  1. GregH February 4th

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    Great list, I’ve read most of them. IMHO the best “programming” book ever is Design Patterns! Check it out.


  2. Nicolas Goles February 4th

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    @GregH

    Yeah, that’s a great book. I don’t really mention it because at the time I was working with that book at the University, I was also starting to learn the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch APIs. I think using Apple APIs was what really helped me to understand design patterns :) ( the Apple docs are quite good )

    Cheers!


  3. George Sealy February 4th

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    You’ve definitely covered a great selection of books there. I’d add Joel Spolsky’s ‘User Interface Design for Programmers’ and Jason Gregory’s ‘Game Engine Architecture’.


  4. dany February 4th

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    @GregH can you post an amazon link? you mean “Head First Design Patterns” or “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” or something other?


  5. Nicolas Goles February 4th

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    @George I haven’t read ‘User Interface Design for Programmers” ( took a class on Usability and User Interfaces last semester though, will check the book out!. About Jason Gregory’s, I really enjoyed that book, I really think he should come out with a second part covering audio systems and a bunch of stuff he didn’t cover in depth.

    @dany I think @GregH was talking about the classical GOF design patterns book, if I’m correct you can check it out here (if the HTML doesn’t work, the ISBN-10 is 0201633612

    Cheers!


  6. GregH February 6th

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    Yup, the design patterns book Nicolas linked. Very very useful book.


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Nicolas Goles

Gando Games Founder and Lead Engineer, Nicolas is also a software Engineering Student in Santiago, Chile. Mostly developing Games and Utilities for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch with C/C++/Obj-C and some lua. He has also worked in Mobile Peer-to-Peer (P2P) application and prototype development.