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Best Tech Books

Best Tech Books for Programming Language Learning

I'm a bit of a polyglot no only in human languages (English, Spanish, Japanese) but also with programming languages. I found that the best way to get a deep understanding of the programming field, I needed to be broad. I got introduced to Bruce Tate's 7 languages in 7 weeks series right when I was starting to learn Ruby and found the cross-language trends to be very useful in knowing what to learn for the future. 

So here is a list of Programming Books that I found good for learning a language. These are the must have books in my opinion to "get" or "grok" the language. Most of these books I have not finished but they're so good I can recommend them for other language learners and polyglots. All these books should accelerate your learning dramatically. 

Poignant Guide to Ruby
Ruby: POODR and _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. 

Okay, so _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby is the reason I fell in love with Ruby. This is not really a Ruby book it's a programming book. If you know how to program already, skip it or just read the first two chapters to see if you like it. As a learning to program book this is a masterpiece. It's also free. Highly Recommended.

POODR which is Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby is also not a Ruby book but a programming in Object Oriented Design book. This book is very, very deep and good for beginners and experts a like. 

If you just want a reference for Ruby, Pragmatic Programmer's Programming Ruby (aka the Pickaxe book due to the illustration in the cover) is really good, and O'Reilly's Understanding Computation has a quick Ruby primer in its first section that is fantastic for getting started on the language quickly. 

Python Tricks The Book
Python: Python Tricks

Python is a very popular language that is fairly easy to understand but has some really obscure issues and gotchas that don't appear in other languages. This books tackles them. It could be called Python potholes and how to avoid them. Highly recommend to anyone even looking sideways at Python. 

Rust: O'Reilly's Programming Rust

I have a whole bunch of books on Rust (it's a hard language to learn) and they're all good. Seriously. Haven't found a bad one in the bunch (Pain Points - A gentle introduction to Rust, Rust in Action (great for learning systems programming), and Programming WebAssembly with Rust, all good) but O'Reilly's Programming Rust is by far the easiest one to learn from and navigate. 

Linux: O'Reilly's LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell

Many books on Linux are either targeted a people with no computer experience or crazy C programming wizards. This book is smack in the middle. Advanced enough to get you beyond the GUI but compact enough not to overwhelm you with needless detail. This book teaches the important commands not the panoply of linux commands that are available. It's a bit old these days but a very good book. 

SQL: O'Reilly's Learning SQL 3rd Edition

Like Linux many books on SQL are either targeted a people with zero knowledge of computers and databases or a long list description of what the database can do with no guidance as to how it's used. This book strikes the middle perfectly. It takes you from baby SQL to master. It is the only book I've found worth buying for relational databases and it's well-written. 

Ansible: Ansible for DevOps

This book keeps getting updated and it's a fantastic reference for Ansible. It's easy to understand and follow.  Also good is Taste Test: Puppet - Chef - SaltStack - Ansible 2nd edition if you want to get a picture for all at the same time. I read the Taste Test book first and I think that serves as a good primer but Ansible for DevOps covers Ansible in depth. With the advent of Docker the need for this type of program has gone down, yet the simplicity of Ansible, I think, makes it the one to check out if you want to just dip your toes in the water and get some fast productivity boosts in the non-Docker DevOps. 

CoffeeScript: JumpStart CoffeeScript and Little Book of CoffeeScript

CoffeeScript is a language whose time has passed and I think part of the reason for this was the dearth of good books for it. I was super excited to learn CoffeeScript because I had not mastered JavaScript then, so it seemed a much easier way to learn JavaScript. Yet, every - single - book assumed advanced knowledge of JavaScript and only highlighted the cleaner syntax... Once ES6 (the modern version of JavaScript) came out, CoffeeScript became largely obsolete. This highly influential language that jumpstarted the evolution of JavaScript into ES6 became so influential that it removed part of its reason for existing in the process. These are the two books I found good. The Little Book of CoffeeScript has all you need to know about CoffeeScript in a neat little book and JumpStart CoffeeScript takes you on a journey to build a game with CoffeeScript, a book I still haven't finished, but I really want to. Neither presumes you know JavaScript, because as I kept saying "if you already know JavaScript, you do JavaScript." 

Prolog: Adventures in Prolog

Every Prolog book I've even looked at made my wallet hurt. This one did not and it's good! A gentle introduction into the language for normal people, I'm only at the beginning of this book but looks promising. The e-book on Kindle is around five bucks. 

Languages that I haven't found any good books on: 

Functional Programming in Scala
1. Scala: I've not found a good book for this language, but granted this is a (wonderful but) bizantine language that makes it hard to find a good way to explain it. I've checked out O'Reilly's Learning Scala and Manning's Functional Programming in Scala, they're both advanced and a little hard to understand, though both seem solid.

2. Elm: There are scant books for this language, and I've only got one and I don't like it. I'm fairly much in love with Elm and have become an expert in it. There are some good video series (Pragmatic and KnowThen) but I haven't found a book I like on it yet.

3. F#: All the books I've looked at assume .NET knowledge, which I don't have, and C# experience which I also don't have. F# could be my functional introduction into these worlds but the books have it backwards as a introduction to functional programming if you know .NET and C# already. 

Let me know if you got a good book recommendation for the languages above. 



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