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Essential Programming Books
This will be a list of books deemed fundamental to the art of programming and will include books for various languages.
See also:
Essential Programming Books
Essential Books of Computer Science
Most popular Computer Science Books on Goodreads
Software Craftsmanship
See also:
Essential Programming Books
Essential Books of Computer Science
Most popular Computer Science Books on Goodreads
Software Craftsmanship
Score
A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
1 |
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
by
Andy Hunt (Goodreads Author)
4.33 avg rating — 23,640 ratings
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2 |
The C Programming Language
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4.44 avg rating — 11,200 ratings
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3 |
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
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4.36 avg rating — 23,091 ratings
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4 |
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
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4.20 avg rating — 11,857 ratings
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5 |
Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
by
Steve McConnell (Goodreads Author)
4.30 avg rating — 9,442 ratings
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6 |
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
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4.47 avg rating — 4,831 ratings
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7 |
Introduction to Algorithms
by
4.35 avg rating — 9,249 ratings
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8 |
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
by
4.24 avg rating — 8,782 ratings
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9 |
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
by
4.01 avg rating — 14,909 ratings
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10 |
The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3 Boxed Set
by
4.50 avg rating — 768 ratings
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11 |
Head First Design Patterns
by
4.30 avg rating — 8,956 ratings
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12 |
The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
by
4.26 avg rating — 9,184 ratings
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13 |
JavaScript: The Good Parts
by
4.23 avg rating — 8,660 ratings
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14 |
The C++ Programming Language
by
4.10 avg rating — 4,015 ratings
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15 |
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
by
Michael C. Feathers (Goodreads Author)
4.14 avg rating — 4,651 ratings
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16 |
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
by
4.10 avg rating — 3,008 ratings
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17 |
The Little Schemer
by
4.29 avg rating — 1,978 ratings
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18 |
Modern Operating Systems
by
4.15 avg rating — 2,180 ratings
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19 |
Test-Driven Development: By Example
by
4.10 avg rating — 4,378 ratings
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20 |
The UNIX Programming Environment
by
4.24 avg rating — 1,309 ratings
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21 |
Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
by
4.15 avg rating — 5,755 ratings
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22 |
Head First Java
by
4.24 avg rating — 4,198 ratings
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23 |
The Algorithm Design Manual
by
Steven S. Skiena (Goodreads Author)
4.34 avg rating — 2,671 ratings
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24 |
Algorithms
by
4.42 avg rating — 1,813 ratings
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25 |
Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
by
4.40 avg rating — 3,340 ratings
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26 |
Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices
by
4.25 avg rating — 1,312 ratings
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27 |
The Practice of Programming (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
by
4.12 avg rating — 1,933 ratings
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28 |
xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code
by
3.94 avg rating — 689 ratings
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29 |
Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
by
4.19 avg rating — 2,457 ratings
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30 |
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
by
4.12 avg rating — 3,866 ratings
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31 |
Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide
by
Dave Thomas (Goodreads Author)
4.04 avg rating — 1,984 ratings
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32 |
Learning Perl
by
3.99 avg rating — 1,858 ratings
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33 |
Real World Haskell
by
Bryan O'Sullivan (Goodreads Author)
3.94 avg rating — 942 ratings
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34 |
How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
by
4.02 avg rating — 270 ratings
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35 |
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
by
4.20 avg rating — 4,402 ratings
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36 |
The Elements of Style
by
4.18 avg rating — 86,459 ratings
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37 |
Learning Python
by
4.01 avg rating — 3,189 ratings
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38 |
Joel on Software
by
4.13 avg rating — 3,377 ratings
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39 |
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment
by
4.34 avg rating — 1,722 ratings
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40 |
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
by
4.34 avg rating — 1,857 ratings
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41 |
Programming Perl
by
4.06 avg rating — 2,300 ratings
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42 |
Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!: A Beginner's Guide
by
4.31 avg rating — 2,370 ratings
score: 834,
and
9 people voted
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43 |
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
by
4.25 avg rating — 3,227 ratings
score: 826,
and
9 people voted
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44 |
ANSI Common Lisp
by
4.11 avg rating — 474 ratings
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45 |
Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
by
4.33 avg rating — 853 ratings
score: 751,
and
8 people voted
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46 |
UNIX Network Programming: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI; Volume 1
by
4.30 avg rating — 617 ratings
score: 740,
and
9 people voted
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47 |
Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming
by
4.14 avg rating — 3,189 ratings
score: 737,
and
8 people voted
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48 |
Introduction to System Design
by
Shivam Singh (Goodreads Author)
4.18 avg rating — 40 ratings
score: 699,
and
7 people voted
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49 |
The Rspec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber, and Friends
by
3.88 avg rating — 770 ratings
score: 692,
and
8 people voted
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50 |
Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects
by
Jared Richardson (Goodreads Author)
3.70 avg rating — 528 ratings
score: 688,
and
8 people voted
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50 |
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
by
4.39 avg rating — 8,605 ratings
score: 688,
and
8 people voted
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52 |
Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example
by
4.07 avg rating — 721 ratings
score: 677,
and
8 people voted
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53 |
The Rails Way
by
3.85 avg rating — 271 ratings
score: 670,
and
8 people voted
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54 |
Introduction to the Theory of Computation
by
4.24 avg rating — 2,095 ratings
score: 633,
and
7 people voted
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55 |
Assembly Language Step-By-Step
by
Jeff Duntemann (Goodreads Author)
4.22 avg rating — 196 ratings
score: 625,
and
7 people voted
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56 |
Refactoring to Patterns
by
4.05 avg rating — 1,437 ratings
score: 616,
and
7 people voted
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56 |
97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
by
Kevlin Henney (Editor)
3.63 avg rating — 1,978 ratings
score: 616,
and
7 people voted
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58 |
Fundamental Kotlin
by
4.23 avg rating — 39 ratings
score: 600,
and
6 people voted
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59 |
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
by
Martin Kleppmann (Goodreads Author)
4.70 avg rating — 10,121 ratings
score: 588,
and
6 people voted
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60 |
C# in Depth
by
4.51 avg rating — 1,160 ratings
score: 547,
and
6 people voted
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61 |
Object-Oriented Software Construction (Book/CD-ROM)
by
4.04 avg rating — 271 ratings
score: 509,
and
6 people voted
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62 |
Agile Web Development with Rails, 1st Edition
by
Dave Thomas (Goodreads Author)
3.86 avg rating — 2,228 ratings
score: 502,
and
6 people voted
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63 |
Essentials of Programming Languages
by
3.96 avg rating — 148 ratings
score: 501,
and
6 people voted
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64 |
Sams Teach Yourself Mysql in 24 Hours
by
3.68 avg rating — 28 ratings
score: 488,
and
6 people voted
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65 |
The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software
by
3.94 avg rating — 1,636 ratings
score: 420,
and
5 people voted
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66 |
The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference
by
4.20 avg rating — 621 ratings
score: 415,
and
5 people voted
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67 |
Just Enough Tech: All the technical knowledge you need to succeed in any Tech industry interview
by
Shivam Singh (Goodreads Author)
4.29 avg rating — 7 ratings
score: 397,
and
4 people voted
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68 |
PHP and MySQL Web Development
by
3.96 avg rating — 971 ratings
score: 394,
and
5 people voted
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68 |
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
by
Tom DeMarco (Goodreads Author)
4.14 avg rating — 9,874 ratings
score: 394,
and
4 people voted
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68 |
Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
by
3.86 avg rating — 584 ratings
score: 394,
and
4 people voted
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71 |
The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .NET
by
Roy Osherove (Goodreads Author)
4.09 avg rating — 1,411 ratings
score: 388,
and
4 people voted
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72 |
Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby
by
4.53 avg rating — 2,801 ratings
score: 358,
and
4 people voted
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73 |
Writing Solid Code
by
4.13 avg rating — 341 ratings
score: 350,
and
4 people voted
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74 |
Continuous delivery
by
Jez Humble (Goodreads Author)
4.20 avg rating — 3,292 ratings
score: 349,
and
4 people voted
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75 |
Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (The XP Series)
by
4.12 avg rating — 4,062 ratings
score: 347,
and
4 people voted
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76 |
Hacker's Delight
by
4.20 avg rating — 1,136 ratings
score: 343,
and
4 people voted
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77 |
Specification by Example: How Successful Teams Deliver the Right Software
by
Gojko Adzic (Goodreads Author)
4.02 avg rating — 708 ratings
score: 341,
and
4 people voted
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78 |
C: A Reference Manual
by
4.18 avg rating — 311 ratings
score: 331,
and
4 people voted
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79 |
Beginning Java 2: Sdk 1.4 Edition
by
3.21 avg rating — 67 ratings
score: 327,
and
4 people voted
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80 |
Lean from the Trenches: Managing Large-Scale Projects with Kanban
by
Henrik Kniberg (Goodreads Author)
4.20 avg rating — 1,005 ratings
score: 324,
and
4 people voted
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81 |
Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming
by
3.52 avg rating — 184 ratings
score: 306,
and
4 people voted
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82 |
Learning Ruby: The Language that Powers Rails
by
3.58 avg rating — 103 ratings
score: 304,
and
4 people voted
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82 |
Sams Teach Yourself Javascript in 24 Hours
by
3.35 avg rating — 65 ratings
score: 304,
and
4 people voted
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84 |
Dependency Injection in .NET
by
Mark Seemann (Goodreads Author)
4.43 avg rating — 777 ratings
score: 276,
and
3 people voted
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85 |
Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications
by
3.91 avg rating — 607 ratings
score: 273,
and
3 people voted
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86 |
UNIX Network Programming, Volume 2: Interprocess Communications
by
4.37 avg rating — 206 ratings
score: 266,
and
4 people voted
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87 |
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
by
4.08 avg rating — 81,700 ratings
score: 265,
and
3 people voted
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88 |
Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
by
Tom DeMarco (Goodreads Author)
4.01 avg rating — 1,616 ratings
score: 259,
and
3 people voted
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89 |
Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash
by
4.20 avg rating — 865 ratings
score: 255,
and
3 people voted
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90 |
Engineering a Compiler
by
4.07 avg rating — 203 ratings
score: 251,
and
3 people voted
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91 |
The Elements Of Computing Systems: Building A Modern Computer From First Principles
by
4.54 avg rating — 939 ratings
score: 239,
and
3 people voted
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92 |
Reviewing C++
by
3.43 avg rating — 7 ratings
score: 235,
and
3 people voted
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93 |
Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
by
3.44 avg rating — 36 ratings
score: 233,
and
3 people voted
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93 |
Stl Tutorial and Reference Guide: C++ Programming With the Standard Template Library
by
3.66 avg rating — 64 ratings
score: 233,
and
3 people voted
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95 |
Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
by
Johanna Rothman (Goodreads Author)
3.71 avg rating — 200 ratings
score: 227,
and
3 people voted
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96 |
Thinking Forth
by
3.98 avg rating — 134 ratings
score: 225,
and
3 people voted
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97 |
Simulation of Digital Communication Systems using Matlab
by
Mathuranathan Viswanathan (Goodreads Author)
4.28 avg rating — 97 ratings
score: 200,
and
2 people voted
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97 |
Your First App: Node.js
by
Jim Schubert (Goodreads Author)
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings
score: 200,
and
2 people voted
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97 |
The Scrumban [R]Evolution: Getting the Most Out of Agile, Scrum, and Lean Kanban
by
3.70 avg rating — 77 ratings
score: 200,
and
2 people voted
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97 |
Code Reviews 101
by
Giuliana Carullo (Goodreads Author)
3.82 avg rating — 11 ratings
score: 200,
and
2 people voted
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182 books ·
507 voters ·
list created August 4th, 2008
by deleted user.
Tags:
computer-languages, software
Comments Showing 1-3 of 3 (3 new)
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by
Jayson
(new)
Jun 03, 2016 05:11PM

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