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I found Code to be amazing for the first half of the book, but it lost clarity for me in the second half.
It just seemed that he lost the desire to make his more advanced information approachable.
"Qulatiy is Job #1"
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I have a COBOL book I like alot. It raises my monitor just right.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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MarkTJohnson wrote: I have a COBOL book I like alot.
As I read that sentence I was thinking..."Ewww..., really?"
MarkTJohnson wrote: It raises my monitor just right.
NOw that makes sense!! 
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MarkTJohnson wrote: It raises my monitor just right.
Petzold's Programming Windows Fifth Edition does it for me!
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I use Inside Ole 2
Real programmers use butterflies
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C# In Depth 3rd Edition (Jon Skeet)
Publisher is Manning
There is a 4th edition: Amazon[^]
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Slacker007 wrote: C# In Depth 3rd Edition (Jon Skeet)
If I owned a business and needed a programmer I would hire you immediately.
That's a very tough book.
I've read the first 3 chapters of that book 2 or 3 times but couldn't get through more.
I'm a bear of little brain. Just couldn't get there. Maybe I'll try again this year and see if I can get through chapter 4 this time.
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Zen and The Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)[^]
And it's about as much about programming as it is about Zen Buddhism or motorcycle maintenance. But ... learn the right lessons from it, and you can cope with development (and make a start of fixing motorcycles as well).
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Good choice!
Real programmers use butterflies
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It's one of the few highly acclaimed books I was not able to finish. Couldn't go beyond 20 odd pages.
Another is Catch 22.
Cheers,
विक्रम
"We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread 
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I'd have to say the GoF patterns book.
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I have read the introductory chapters (intro and chapter 1) and then skipped around a bit. Mostly too hard for me. I like that they say, "Prefer composition over inheritance."
That's what that entire book is about for me. I remember back when OOP was growing in popularity (1991 or so) and it was all about inheritance. Then GoF explains, "no it's about composition". That's good stuff!
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It's good as a reference. Just read the general description of each pattern and look at the details when you think you need a pattern but the UML diagram doesn't give you a good enough idea of how to write the code.
As much as anything, the fact that it gives a name to each pattern saves lots of time during design discussions, because everyone can quickly understand an approach being suggested. It's about much more than composition, though.
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Greg Utas wrote: gives a name to each pattern
Which is the only real value of the book. I bought a copy simply so I could be sure I knew what people were talking about and know which people had no idea what they were talking about.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Which is the only real value of the book.
I've gotten some mileage out of the visitor pattern but I didn't learn it from that book. In fairness though, they describe it for people that didn't already learn it, and it's one of the more useful patterns to know, IMO.
Real programmers use butterflies
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That's interesting, because I don't recall using Visitor. It probably depends on your problem domains. The patterns that resonated most with me were Chain of Responsibility, Abstract Factory, and Observer, and the simpler Singleton and Flyweight. I'd already used them but now had good names for them.
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Yeah it really depends on what you're doing. I've just had several occasions where I basically need to query an object model, and a visitor can be a foundation of that.
Real programmers use butterflies
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For me, it's a toss up between Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language, and Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger's The AWK Programming Language. Other books I remember from college days include Fortran IV With Watfor and Watfiv, and a two book set of Shelley & Cashman on Cobol. Those are all still around, somewhere in the attic, along with a lot of seriously outdated hardware. I know there's a 300 baud modem with the acoustic couplers for a standard Bell desk phone's handset up there, and a couple of cases of 80-column cards.
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Plus one for this choice: Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language
I taught myself C by reading and re-reading the second edition and everything was approachable, right through the end.
"Qulatiy is Job #1"
modified 27-Oct-20 12:48pm.
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Very useful indeed.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Petzold Programming Windows 3.1 will always have a special place for me.
I remember actually understanding this Windows programming thing and the Windows message loop and thinking, "wow, someone actually explains how this stuff works".
He explained stuff so well that it was like opening up a whole new world and programming was really exciting. Such a special book.
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Petzold is one of those rare individuals who can understand a subject and explain it in ways that a beginner can understand. Without patronising more advanced readers either.
He writes good stuff!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Cool. He's a really good teacher. I have a lot of respect for the man.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I still have a copy of that. I hug it occasionally for inspiration!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Forogar wrote: I still have a copy of that. I hug it occasionally for inspiration!
That is a very good idea. I'm going to have to start hugging mine too. 
Mine sits on a bottom shelf of a bookshelf in my Home Office and each time I see it I get all goose-pimply and start thinking I know how to program again. 
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