So this is the first time I've really had a chance to post anything this week. We're hosting Jean-Paul Boodhoo this week for his Nothin' But .Net bootcamp course, of which I've been lucky enough to be able to attend. I think it's pretty clear now from other's experiences (and from my own so far) that the benefits from a course like are huge, so I won't detail them here (yet). I mean, how often do we (developers) get to spend a week in a room full of other developers from varying backgrounds having discussions and driving out a reference application using TDD, proper refactorings and design patterns with an experienced mentor like JP right there in the action?!?
For me, I know that's a pretty rare situation. The pressures of timelines, estimates and a lot of the other "stuff" that comes along with "real" projects usually doesn't allow for this kind of concentrated learning environment. Even though I've read and am reading quite a few patterns and design books, this week I've seen a lot of the techniques I've read about (and somewhat used) actually put into practice in very elegant ways (i.e. patterns like strategy, visitor, decorator, etc.).
So one of the things JP mentioned this week (and also in this post) that I very much agree with is that if you want to improve your skills and be able to write better, maintainable software, you have to be a student of your profession. Meaning you have to always keep sharpening your skills by doing things like learning a new language each year, read a book a month, etc. And instead of trying to learn everything about everything, just concentrate on those areas for which your current (and somewhat immediate future) work pertains. Otherwise, you could be wasting a lot of that time learning things, you will most likely rarely, if ever be able to put into practice.
To wrap it up for now, here are a few of the recommended books that were talked about as recommended reads:
Non-Technology Specific
Technology Specific
Even though I've read half of these books, I'm always going back and revisiting their content on an ongoing basis, and will probably continue to do so as I put more and more of their techniques into practice. Sometimes you just get a fresh perspective on things when reading it again a year later. But I've been wanting to read Code Complete 2 anyways, so working my way down the list, I think I may pick up a copy of that to read next.
Sorry, no code in this post. I'm going to try to keep the number of non-code postings down from now on...