The Web 2.0 bookshelf

We are expecting another baby, so I was just moving my office from the second floor to our newly finished basement. I am not complaining since the basement turned out to be quite awesome. Its big, bright. clean and, most importantly, conducive to some major code cranking.

Moving the office means that I have to move my books, and I just love doing that. These rare occasions gives me a chance to remind myself how I got where I am now. The books bring memories, but more importantly the books shape us no less than circumstances, family and friends. Finding a good book is precious, it really is a rare gift.

The Web 2.0 mind set

Looking at my book stack made me think about recommending some good books for software engineers who are starting to work in the Web 2.0 space. Since the field is relatively new, we do not have any classics out there yet. But there are a few good books that should be on your shelf. And so I wanted to put together a list of books that help me in my daily work.

Over and over again, through my career, I find that books that help me the most are not just the books about programming language or software. I have been fortunate to draw the inspiration from a multitude of disciplines ranging from arts like poetry and music to sciences like ecology and economics. The patterns and beauty that exist in these diverse subjects find important place in modern software engineering.

The new web is all about creativity, cross-pollination of concepts, media and information. But what fuels this new web is networks. In his recent article, Dion Hinchcliffe calls social networks the Web 2.0 secret sauce. Very rightly so, because networks are one of the fundamental blocks or patterns occurring in nature. So the some of the books that I assembled for the Web 2.0 bookshelf are about patterns in nature and power of networks.

Know thy basics

It does not matter what language you are programming in, it does not matter if you are working in United States or Europe and it does not matter what system you are building, there is a set of basic infrastructural knowledge that any successful software engineer must have. On my bookshelf, the indispensable and universal knowledge includes basic algorithms, understanding of programming language concepts, design patterns, refactoring, unit testing and agile methods. The books below give you the essential knowledge in these areas.

If interested. click:
here for Ruby on Rails
here for Hacking Atom and RSS
here for Lamp

Know thy art

The books above give you strength and skills to build solid Web 2.0 applications. But to build truly great stuff you need passion and inspiration. The three books below have helped me to expand my mind and bring patterns from other disciplines into the code that I wrote. I cherish them dearly and hope you enjoy them as well.


If interested, click:
here for Complexity
here for Six Degrees
here for Godel, Escher, Bach

Conclusion

Books are our companions. We read when we are happy and we are sad, we read when we need to learn. The Web 2.0 world is fast changing. It requires continuous learning. It requires good books. Lets learn together! You can find more of my science and technology picks in this entry on my blog. Please use the feedback section of this article to share the Web 2.0 books that you liked with other readers.