The vast field of IT books has a slew of timeless classics in it, all of which should be read by anybody intending to be worth their salt as a technical professional.
But in fact, I seem to encounter less and less discussion/mention of these kinds of books as the blogosphere inflates and the Tweets zip overhead.
So, a few of those in particular I wanted to mention here, as a curmudgeony sort of move:
The Mythical Man-Month (Frederick Brooks) - This is a classic about the human aspects of developing software. You need this, critically. Buy it now.
Code Complete (Steve McConnell) - The definitive distillation of programming style and consideration. For your colleagues, for the future, for God's sake -- read this and absorb it if you ever do any coding. And don't think you know better. Because you probably don't. Sorry.
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, The Secrets of Consulting, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach (Gerald M. Weinberg) - Gerry Weinberg is one of the great unsung heroes in the history of software development. All his books are chock full'o'wisdom for any kind of systems developer or engineer. Not to mention his consulting expertise.
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (Alan Cooper) - A definitive treatise about bad user interface design in modern technology. Must-read. Really, this has saved me some rewrite work over the years.
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Richard Helm) - A little more down in the details than the rest of these tomes, this one is valuable not just for the specific patterns described, but for illuminating the whole idea that there ARE patterns in the software game...
So check these out. All of them definitely affected my thinking and behavior over the course of my career -- in positive ways. Next time, some more specific BI and Consulting book recs.
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