Hey guys, just wanted to get some suggestions on good programming books you guys have found. I'll start it off with these:

(For Rails specifically) Rails Antipatterns - amazon.com

Design Patterns - amazon.com

I'd mention the classics (Pragmatic Programmer and Code Complete), but truthfully I've never made it completely through either of them...

(And please join my software group!)

I sleep with the O'Reilly definitive guide to javascript under my pillow. Also, Pro Javascript design made me look at javascript differently. bheinrichs.nl

I'm a beginner, but a friend recommended I read Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler, so I am going to try and read it over winter break.

Oh, hmmm, I think I know a few people who read that. Whta did your friend say about it?

Well I had asked about design patterns, since I know very little about them. He said this book gave a great overview of what design patterns are and how to best use them.

The Pragmatic Programmer always has great nuggets. @Hursh, I love Rails AntiPatterns, and find that I can abstract the advice to other applications too.

Weirdly, I really enjoy reading language specifications (Java, C++, Scala, etc.). It's fascinating—and useful—to understand the authors' reasonings about language grammar, syntax, and features. I really wish Ruby had one.

I really enjoyed reading the Land of Lisp - it was a really good read and actually a lot of fun at the same time. I had no idea going into it what functional programming or LISP even was but the book explained a lot of the concepts very easily and simply.

I'd recommend reading this at least once, or even to look through it - it changes you (well it changed me) as a programmer and changes perspective on programming concisely. + LISP has some cool things you can take out and use in your own languages. ALSO - it has some comic type parts in there so it's actually very enjoyable.

@Abhi, if you know Lisp why do you still use PHP? :p

@David - I don't know what to say.. the only possible answer I have is LISP is hard..

Besides the O'Reilly Definitive Guide for JS (shop.oreilly.com), I'm a huge fan of "The Practice of Programming" by Kernighan and Pike (amazon.com).

Kernighan and Pike both worked at Bell Labs and worked on Unix, so they know their stuff.

There's a pretty significant contrast between code that works and code that is well written. Besides aesthetics and readability (which alone are valuable), setting a standard for your code demands more attention which leads to much better results.

@Steve, is "The Practice of Programming" applicable to all languages?

@Josh for the most part, yes. There certainly are different conventions across languages, and this may lean towards the C/C++/Java side of things.

If you want to learn C/Assembly the text book NYU uses for Computer Systems Organization is really good. amazon.com

Tough to get through, though :|

Anyone gone through SICP?

I have started watching the videos of SICP and never crossed beyond 3rd/4th video :(. It is an excellent series if you have enough time. ocw.mit.edu.

I prefer Pragmatic Starter Kit. pragprog.com

Thought this dhh post would be relevant. 37signals.com

ruby.railstutorial.org Is a great Rails book. You can buy the hard copy book online but that is the full text that he has posted online as well.

Yeah, I started out learning Rails through Rails Tutorial (and some of the Peepcode screencasts). Super helpful!

Introduction to algorithms is probably one of the most important books I will ever read on programming.

Apart from that there are important topics and good books, often orthogonal. SICP is another great book on an important topic, but prolog is important too, yet I cannot recommend a particularly good book on it. There are the occasional subjects that you can learn better from papers, tutorials or blogs these days.

Finally I'll recommend The Lean Startup. It describes a very important iterative development approach that saves more time than knowing any one technique or style.