Required Reading II: Electric Boogaloo

I wanted to follow up my previous "required reading" post with a more BI/Consulting directed set of books you should be reading/have read.

The Data Warehouse Toolkit - This is a effectively a Kimball Method primer, from the source himself.  This gives a great survey of the lifecycle and methodology, not to mention a breakdown of dimensional modeling and all it entails.  Coming into BI as a developer, this is where I really learned about the thinking behind ETL processes, and it gave me answers to early challenges in warehouse/datamart modeling.

The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit - This is the Microsoft-flavored cousin of the previous book, written by Joy Mundy and Warren Thornthwaite (based on the existing book).  The newest version is current through SQL Server 2008 R2, and therefore incorporates discussion/demonstration of some of its cooler new features (the delicious Merge statement, new SSRS goodies, etc.)

Agile Database Techniques - this is a personal favorite, just because I think the Agile methods in general can be applied with success to some types of BI/DW projects.  How's that for a qualified statement, huh?  Seriously, though: experience the pattern of requirements change on a few consecutive projects, and tell me  BDUF isn't contrary to BI goals....  Anway, Scott Ambler is the Agile mouthpiece, so it's great that this book is his. 

 Getting Started in Consulting,  Million Dollar Consulting - Have to recommend Alan Weiss for consulting books.  His materials are a lot more utilitarian than many business books.  Less cheese-moving, more concrete examples of Things You Should Do.  The two titles listed above are the ones from which I got a lot.

OK, that's enough reading for now.  :)

 

Required General IT Reading

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.