Our Technical--and not so Technical--Reading List

This week we thought we would stray a little outside of the technical world and respond to one of the questions we are often asked. Actually it is more often phrased as a statement than purely as a question "You guys must read an incredible amount of stuff to keep up with all the new things in the IBM i world." This is often followed by "How do you decide what to read?" or "Do you ever read anything except technical stuff?"

Let's start with the technical stuff. We follow some dozen or more online forums ranging from Midrange.com to Code400 to those on SystemiNetwork. We also subscribe to more than 40 technical newsletters covering topic areas from Web design to mobile apps to general IBM i and (not surprisingly) programming in RPG, PHP, etc. Do we read all of these completely? No; there aren't that many hours in the day. We find that skimming the content often reveals trends that we should dig into more deeply.

Of course there are a few writers that we consider "must reads." Scott Klement is the first person to come to mind, followed by Aaron Bartell  and for PHP-oriented topics, Alan Seiden and Mike Pavlak. Trevor Perry is always worth reading; even if we don't always agree with him we have to admire his passion!

We have, of course, large heaps of technical books around the place--more recently the PHP, Web and mobile-related heaps have been growing. Actually since we buy more and more books in e-reader format these days the physical heaps aren't growing as much as they used to, thank goodness. Many of the recent additions to the library come from the folks at Sitepoint. In particular we've added "JQUERY: Novice to Ninja" and "Build Mobile Websites and Apps ..." both of which are excellent introductions to the topics and well priced, as are most of Sitepoint's offerings.

Do we ever read anything non-technical? Sure. In a blog post a few years ago, we talked about our fascination with "Predictably Irrational" and "Freakonomics." Susan has actually re-read "Predictably Irrational" since then and enjoyed it as much as the first time. She has also been enjoying some books by Malcolm Gladwell: "The Tipping Point" and "Outliers" and she has "What the Dog Saw" and "Blink" waiting in her "to be read soon" stack. We also want to re-read our friend Bob Tipton's great book "Jump!: Get Unstuck" before we see him at the upcoming RPG & DB2 Summit, where he'll be our keynote speaker. He might quiz us on the content!

What about reading purely for fun? Absolutely. We recently discovered Kathy Reichs and are thoroughly enjoying her books. We didn't know it when we started reading her, but her main character, Temperance Brennan, is also the main character in the TV series "Bones". But if you don't like "Bones" don't let it put you off trying the books; they are really quite different. "Bones" has just been TV-ized. We have also enjoyed most of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, which we began reading at the suggestion of friend and colleague Paul Tuohy.

Jon is a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and even persuaded Susan to read "Nation" which she enjoyed even though she's not into the fantasy genre. This is interestingly one of Pratchett's young reader series, which may say something about our maturity level. If you haven't read it give it a try. It will challenge the way you view religion and society as well as being a darned good read. Jon was glad he didn't realize it was for young people or he might have missed it!

Jon has just finished reading "Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories," which is a collection of the stories Randy tells on his weekly radio show. If you are a music lover this is a "must listen." Until recently you had to listen to the live stream or on satellite radio in the U.S., but past shows are now available on CBC's website. Next on his reading list is "Outwitting Squirrels" by Bill Adler Jr. ,which from a brief glance is hilarious--and hopefully helpful!

So what else should we be reading? Any and all suggestions welcome.

Comments

[Paul Clapham]

If you liked Freakonomics et al then you might like "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Everything you thought you knew about decision-making is not quite right.

[Evelyn Hoover]

I can't comment on the techie stuff, because apart from reading your blog and some of Aaron's stuff, I don't venture into the techie realm. But, love Lee Child (or maybe it's Jack Reacher that I love?). Also highly recommend the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. I think you'd love it, Jon. Not sure if Susan would like it, but maybe.

[david]

I second Evelyn's Dresden suggestion ... its a great series. It combines hard boiled detective with horror.

[ExpatPaul]

Everyone should be a huge fan of Terry Pratchett. I started reading the Nomes trilogy to my son just before Christmas, and now we're reading all three books for the third time

[Barbara Morris]

Michael Feathers "Working Effectively with Legacy Code". He considers code to be "legacy" if it doesn't have testcases that enable it to be modified without fear. I know that this negative view goes against the "value" aspect of "legacy", but other than the possible misuse of the word "legacy", I think it's a great book full of very sound advice.

For fiction, I recommend William Kent Krueger.

[Jon Paris]

@ExpatPaul I agree about Nomes - after we finished reading them my two youngest wanted more. I finished up making up entire stories based on the characters and wove them into local places they knew. When they get a bit older the "Johnny" series are really great. Also the Tiffany Aching series are excellent - but I'm biased about those because they are all set "on the chalk" which is where I grew up and those hills "speak" to me now just as they do in the novels.

[Jon Paris]

@Barbara Thanks for the "Legacy" reference - I will certainly try to get my hands on a copy.

I confess I have never heard of Krueger (other than Freddie!) - will have to see if I can get an ebook from my local library.

[Darron]

I'm a huge podcasting fan (reading is so 2000) and I love Freakonomics so I think you might like WNYC's Radio Lab and This American Life. For the techies - and to qualify this, I'm an Aussie RPG coder of 22yrs - I took a shot from left field with the Java Posse, a UK podcast, and find the insight into development techniques and strategies outside of the RPG world to be extremely refreshing and useful. For the Science geeks, the ABC Science Show (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corp) is world class as is the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and Astronomy Cast. This is where I start to run out of time listening... I never thought I'd find the 2x speed audio switch on the iPod of such benefit...

Ok, I lied, I do read some books; plus the odd blog (no pun). My non-virtual shelf at work contains mostly IT classics: Software Writing by Joel Spolsky, The Pragmatic Programmer (Hunt and Thomas), the Cathedral & the Bazaar, and the Mythical Man-Month. Recent fiction of note is the outstanding Ready Player One, literary crack for the inner geek in us all.