Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

* Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence by Andrew Hodges. The definitive biography, with lots of detailed explanations of his work. * Making Software, edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about evidence-based software engineering. * Beautiful Code, also edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about especially elegant pieces of software. * Eiffel, by Bertrand Meyer. What Java should have been. * The Devil's DP Dictionary, by Stan Kelly Bootle. A satirical look at the computer industry circa 1980. * The Jargon File. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/). The language of the Elder Days. * Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert Glass. * The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt & Thomas.

- The Pragmatic Programmer - Refactoring - Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering - Code Complete

'Implementation Patterns', Kent Beck. A semi-language-agnostic extension of his 'Smalltalk Patterns'for how to clearly and consistently express what you're saying when you code. 'Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering', Robert Glass. Glass presents a list of things everybody knows, or ought to know, and gives both academic and opinionated support and/or critique for why they are and aren't so. 'Making Software', Oram and Wilson. An edited collection of papers on evidence-based software engineering. 'The Deadline', Tom DeMarco. A thinly disguised commercial for his advice on how to organize software development teams and organizations, packaged as light, light novel.

In context of software development these books (and other works by same people) might be interesting. I have not read them all yet but have been recommended by a colleague. My perspective is defined by being a developer in circa 100 people company. * The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month * Facts and fallacies of software engineering by Robert L. Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Glass * Lessons learned from 25 years of process improvement: The Rise and Fall of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/basili/publications/proceedings... (https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/basili/publications/proceedings/P94.pdf)

Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering (http://www.amazon.com/Facts-Fallacies-Software-Engineering-R... (http://www.amazon.com/Facts-Fallacies-Software-Engineering-Robert/dp/0321117425)). It may be starting to get a little dated, so it's hard to say that all the referenced research is still applicable in the same way. But it's a good antidote to a common problem everywhere I've worked: the idea that our team is in some way special or unique in a way that implies reasonable standards of software engineering practice don't apply. It's almost always part of a rationalization cycle that justifies the way things have always been done or some kind of Taylorist management practice.

You may also enjoy Glass' Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, it's similar to Mythical Man Month (and cites it and overlaps in parts) but the focus is a bit wider, with many small essays on a particular problem in programming or management of programmers