Writer of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter and books on software engineering careers; previously an engineering manager at Uber, Skype and Skyscanner.
recommended
a classic to prepare for the data structures and algorithms interviews.
His continuously-updated public reading list of software engineering and management books, newsletters and podcasts he recommends (page last modified 2024-12-16; the page states none of the links are affiliate or sponsored).
Programmer and writer on computer architecture, performance and software reliability; has worked on hardware and software at Centaur Technology, Google and Microsoft, and writes at danluu.com.
mixedaffiliate link
I usually recommend this book to people who want to pass interviews but not really learn about algorithms. It has just enough to get by, but doesn't really teach you the why behind anything.
'Programming book recommendations and anti-recommendations' — a topic-by-topic list of the technical books he has read, with what each one is and is not good for. The site gives no day, only 10/16 in its index.
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Hardware, services4 years
Software5 years
Podcasts, courses, other8 years
Books25 years
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.