Here are 100 books that A Philosophy of Software Design fans have personally recommended if you like A Philosophy of Software Design. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Mariano Anaya Author Of Clean Code in Python

From my list on building high-quality enterprise software.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a software engineer because I’m a builder at heart. I have always had a profoundly curious mind, and always enjoyed tinkering. So at one point in my life, it became evident that I was going to be an engineer. I consider teaching the final step of learning, so whether this means writing an article or giving a talk, or simply sharing recommendations, I make a final effort to share with the community of like-minded people what I have learnt. For this reason, I hope you enjoy reading my book and the ones I recommended.

Mariano's book list on building high-quality enterprise software

Mariano Anaya Why Mariano loves this book

I’ve found in this book many useful topics about low-level design which connected with my first recommendation (Code Complete). For instance, about creating functions not only as a tactic for reusing code, but more as a way to give clear meaning to parts of the code, and make it more readable. I was happy to find in these authors ideas I have been agreeing with for a long time.

Then there’s also the fact that this book provides several examples with code on how to make the design simpler to maintain, and clearly illustrates the S.O.L.I.D. principles.

By Robert Martin ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Clean Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Even bad code can function. But if code isn't clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code "on the fly" into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a…


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Mariano Anaya Author Of Clean Code in Python

From my list on building high-quality enterprise software.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a software engineer because I’m a builder at heart. I have always had a profoundly curious mind, and always enjoyed tinkering. So at one point in my life, it became evident that I was going to be an engineer. I consider teaching the final step of learning, so whether this means writing an article or giving a talk, or simply sharing recommendations, I make a final effort to share with the community of like-minded people what I have learnt. For this reason, I hope you enjoy reading my book and the ones I recommended.

Mariano's book list on building high-quality enterprise software

Mariano Anaya Why Mariano loves this book

I've found this book enlightening in many key areas of software development, and as I was reading it, I felt connected with the author (even though I've never met him, I could imagine us having a conversation about software engineering, and agreeing on pretty much everything).

It was a revealing book for me, in the sense that it gave a formal framework to several ideas I've noticed as a practitioner over the years. In that regard, I wish I'd come across this work way earlier in my career.

By Steve McConnell ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Code Complete as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell's original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices-and hundreds of new code samples-illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking-and help you build…


Book cover of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners

Christopher Trudeau Author Of Django in Action

From my list on books for coders shelf.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first computer was an early IBM PC back when all my friends had Commodores they used for gaming. Not being able to share their games meant I had to do something else, so I read the Introduction to Basic book that came in the box. I’ve been coding, reading about coding, writing about coding, teaching about coding, and talking about coding ever since. The world of technology moves so fast that it is hard to keep up. If you’ve taken one of my courses or listened to The Real Python Podcast, I hope you’ve heard about my passion for the topic. 

Christopher's book list on books for coders shelf

Christopher Trudeau Why Christopher loves this book

When I work with students new to programming I often find they struggle with translating the toy problems in exercises to actually doing something in the real world.

I love this book and frequently recommend it to new programmers because it is centered around problems. Coding should be about making your life easier. At the beginning, the problems are small, but by the end, you’re learning about email, PDFs, and GUIs.

Sweigart has a great voice, and reading this feels like being guided by a friend rather than yet another coding textbook.

By Al Sweigart ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Automate the Boring Stuff with Python as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this second edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, you'll learn the basics of programming in Python, the fastest growing programming language today, before moving on to create Python programs that effortlessly perform useful and impressive feats of automation. This updated edition is full of step-by-step instructions that walk through each programme. Practice projects at the end of each chapter challenge you to improve those programmes and use your newfound skills to automate similar tasks.


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Book cover of Retrieving the Future

Retrieving the Future by Randy C. Dockens,

Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.

Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…

Book cover of Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design

Christopher Trudeau Author Of Django in Action

From my list on books for coders shelf.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first computer was an early IBM PC back when all my friends had Commodores they used for gaming. Not being able to share their games meant I had to do something else, so I read the Introduction to Basic book that came in the box. I’ve been coding, reading about coding, writing about coding, teaching about coding, and talking about coding ever since. The world of technology moves so fast that it is hard to keep up. If you’ve taken one of my courses or listened to The Real Python Podcast, I hope you’ve heard about my passion for the topic. 

Christopher's book list on books for coders shelf

Christopher Trudeau Why Christopher loves this book

When helping software organizations be nimbler, I tend to stress two things: release more frequently and automate everything. Over the years, I’ve frequently got pushback from the database folks. Most DBAs and Data Architects are taught a very top-down approach and want all information upfront before creating a single table.

This book teaches how to apply abstraction layers that are common in programming but not as common in database design. The book showed me how to use versioned views to control the coding interface and upended my overall approach to designing databases.

By Scott W. Ambler , Pramod J. Sadalage ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Refactoring Databases as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Refactoring has proven its value in a wide range of development projects-helping software professionals improve system designs, maintainability, extensibility, and performance. Now, for the first time, leading agile methodologist Scott Ambler and renowned consultant Pramodkumar Sadalage introduce powerful refactoring techniques specifically designed for database systems.

Ambler and Sadalage demonstrate how small changes to table structures, data, stored procedures, and triggers can significantly enhance virtually any database design-without changing semantics. You'll learn how to evolve database schemas in step with source code-and become far more effective in projects relying on iterative, agile methodologies.

This comprehensive guide and reference helps you overcome…


Book cover of Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

Christopher Trudeau Author Of Django in Action

From my list on books for coders shelf.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first computer was an early IBM PC back when all my friends had Commodores they used for gaming. Not being able to share their games meant I had to do something else, so I read the Introduction to Basic book that came in the box. I’ve been coding, reading about coding, writing about coding, teaching about coding, and talking about coding ever since. The world of technology moves so fast that it is hard to keep up. If you’ve taken one of my courses or listened to The Real Python Podcast, I hope you’ve heard about my passion for the topic. 

Christopher's book list on books for coders shelf

Christopher Trudeau Why Christopher loves this book

Most of the code I write and use is open source. As a programmer, it is easy to think “open source means free.” I didn’t think much about it until one of the companies I worked at got acquired, and we had to audit our licenses.

The big company that bought us was very particular about which licenses were compatible with their needs. That was when I realized I needed to understand this stuff better. Rosen does a great job of teaching what is otherwise legalese in plain-spoken, easy-to-understand language. This book taught me why I choose the licenses I do rather than picking blindly.

By Lawrence Rosen ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Open Source Licensing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I have studied Rosen's book in detail and am impressed with its scope and content. I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in the current controversies surrounding open source licensing."
-John Terpstra, Samba.org; cofounder, Samba-Team"Linux and open source software have forever altered the computing landscape. The important conversations no longer revolve around the technology but rather the business and legal issues. Rosen's book is must reading for anyone using or providing open source solutions."
-Stuart Open Source Development LabsA Complete Guide to the Law of Open Source for Developers, Managers, and Lawyers

Now that open source software is blossoming around…


Book cover of Release It!

Mariano Anaya Author Of Clean Code in Python

From my list on building high-quality enterprise software.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a software engineer because I’m a builder at heart. I have always had a profoundly curious mind, and always enjoyed tinkering. So at one point in my life, it became evident that I was going to be an engineer. I consider teaching the final step of learning, so whether this means writing an article or giving a talk, or simply sharing recommendations, I make a final effort to share with the community of like-minded people what I have learnt. For this reason, I hope you enjoy reading my book and the ones I recommended.

Mariano's book list on building high-quality enterprise software

Mariano Anaya Why Mariano loves this book

The marvel of this book is that it's a rare one: most of the books focus on the construction part of software, all the design and preparation. But what happens once the system is out there, launched? Release It! focuses on the software architecture aspects that entail designing a platform to make it reliable once it’s been released.

It touches on concepts like logging, locking, circuit breakers, and it’s written from the author’s experience with real-life examples (and even code snippets). As someone who has worked on several different types of software products (and been on-call), I’ve enjoyed reading the author tell us about things that went wrong in the past, and what lessons were learnt from them.

By Michael T. Nygard ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Release It! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A single dramatic software failure can cost a company millions of dollars - but can be avoided with simple changes to design and architecture. This new edition of the best-selling industry standard shows you how to create systems that run longer, with fewer failures, and recover better when bad things happen. New coverage includes DevOps, microservices, and cloud-native architecture. Stability antipatterns have grown to include systemic problems in large-scale systems. This is a must-have pragmatic guide to engineering for production systems. If you're a software developer, and you don't want to get alerts every night for the rest of your…


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Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

What Walks This Way by Sharman Apt Russell,

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…

Book cover of The C Programming Language

Arthur O'Dwyer Author Of Mastering the C++17 STL

From my list on budding C plus plus software engineer.

Why am I passionate about this?

The art of computer programming is a lot like the art of writing: It's not just about what your program says but about how it says it. One of the reasons I like the C and C++ languages—which I picked up in the late 1990s and haven't put down since—is that, as compiled, non-sandboxed languages, they promise total control over the machine. Show me where you want each byte of data to go in memory; show me the machine instructions you want; and I can make C++ do that for you. 

Arthur's book list on budding C plus plus software engineer

Arthur O'Dwyer Why Arthur loves this book

Next to Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month, this is perhaps the most classic of all classic programming books.

The authors write: "Besides showing how to make effective use of the language, we have also tried where possible to illustrate useful algorithms and principles of good style and sound design."

The book is astoundingly practical as a tutorial, which is itself a testament to the Unix "pipe" model of programming: By page 13, they've introduced getchar and putchar, and by the end of Chapter 1, twenty pages later, you've implemented a host of useful utilities including cat, wc, and detab. In Chapter 5 you implement a function recognizable as the now-standard qsort; in Chapter 8 you implement malloc itself.

Now, I recommend "K&R1," not the more popular "K&R2." The first edition was issued in 1978 at a slim 225 pages; the second edition, a decade later, added conformance with ANSI…

By Brian W. Kernighan , Dennis M. Ritchie ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The C Programming Language as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Known as the bible of C, this classic bestseller introduces the C programming language and illustrates algorithms, data structures, and programming techniques.


Book cover of The Pragmatic Programmer

Mariano Anaya Author Of Clean Code in Python

From my list on building high-quality enterprise software.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a software engineer because I’m a builder at heart. I have always had a profoundly curious mind, and always enjoyed tinkering. So at one point in my life, it became evident that I was going to be an engineer. I consider teaching the final step of learning, so whether this means writing an article or giving a talk, or simply sharing recommendations, I make a final effort to share with the community of like-minded people what I have learnt. For this reason, I hope you enjoy reading my book and the ones I recommended.

Mariano's book list on building high-quality enterprise software

Mariano Anaya Why Mariano loves this book

I've found this book to be instrumental in my career as a software engineer, especially because it's full of useful and practical advice on how to be effective and productive on a day-to-day basis, but it also includes actionable advice, and helped me a lot on thinking about my career long-term.

By David Thomas , Andrew Hunt ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Pragmatic Programmer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Straight from the programming trenches, The Pragmatic Programmer cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process--taking a requirement and producing working, maintainable code that delights its users. It covers topics ranging from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. Read this book, and you'll learn how to



Fight software rot;
Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge;
Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code;
Avoid programming by coincidence;
Bullet-proof your code with contracts, assertions, and exceptions;
Capture real requirements;
Test ruthlessly and…


Book cover of Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide

Paolo Perrotta Author Of Programming Machine Learning: From Coding to Deep Learning

From my list on classic software that are still worth reading.

Why am I passionate about this?

You know what ages like milk? Programming books. I always cringe when someone glances at my programming bookshelf. Some of those books are so dated, they make me appear out of touch by association. Sometimes, I feel compelled to justify myself. “Yes, that's the first edition of Thinking in Java I keep it for nostalgic reasons, you know!” Yesterday’s software book is today’s fish and chip wrapper. However, there are exceptions. A few classics stay relevant for years, or even decades. This is a shortlist of software books that might be older than you, but are still very much worth reading.

Paolo's book list on classic software that are still worth reading

Paolo Perrotta Why Paolo loves this book

If you check out Amazon’s best selling books on object-oriented design, you might see a relic from 1995 still hanging near the top: "Design Patterns". That book transformed software design. Its four authors will forever be known to my generation as the “Gang of Four".

Some of the original patterns may feel outdated today, but others remain essential. Pity that the book itself is such a tough read. Good thing that another "gang of four”, spearheaded by the excellent Kathy Sierra, gave us this lighthearted take on the original patterns.

The Design Patterns book was a densely packed truck of ideas. By comparison, Head First Design Patterns is a whimsical bumper car. It’s quirky and accessible, which some serious programmers found off-putting: “It’s a book for teenagers!“, they griped.

Yes, it’s not for everybody. But it’s fun, unassuming, and it teaches important concepts. So it makes my list.

By Eric Freeman , Elisabeth Robson , Kathy Sierra , Bert Bates

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Head First Design Patterns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

You're not alone. At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them,…


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Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of Lessons Learned in Software Testing: A Context-Driven Approach

Markus Gärtner Author Of ATDD by Example: A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development

From my list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester.

Why am I passionate about this?

Markus Gärtner works as Organizational Design Consultant, Certified Scrum Trainer, and Agile Coach for it-agile GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. Markus, author of ATDD by Example - A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development, a student of the work of Jerry Weinberg, received the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person Award in 2013 and contributes to the Softwerkskammer, the German Software Craft movement. Markus regularly presents at Agile and testing conferences all over the globe, as well as dedicating himself to writing about agile software development, software craft, and software testing, foremost in an Agile context.

Markus' book list on surviving the Agile world as a software tester

Markus Gärtner Why Markus loves this book

“Good agile testing is good context-driven testing applied in an agile context.”

The authors of this book summarize their decades of experience in software testing in over 100 lessons they learned. Follow them along different aspects of the tester’s job, as they re-tell various stories collected over the years with some clear guidance to surviving and testing project.

These software testing industry leaders have some timely contextual advice in here – whether you work as a tester on an agile team or in a more traditional fashion.

By Cem Kaner , James Bach , Bret Pettichord

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lessons Learned in Software Testing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Decades of software testing experience condensed into the most important lessons learned.

The world's leading software testing experts lend you their wisdom and years of experience to help you avoid the most common mistakes in testing software. Each lesson is an assertion related to software testing, followed by an explanation or example that shows you the how, when, and why of the testing lesson. More than just tips, tricks, and pitfalls to avoid, Lessons Learned in Software Testing speeds you through the critical testing phase of the software development project without the extensive trial and error it normally takes to…


Book cover of Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
Book cover of Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
Book cover of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners

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