Change of plan

Been busy with other books since the arrival of an amazon shipment. Busier than I was with sicp alone.

I originally set deadlines to discipline myself, but have found that it's resulted in negative behavior such as:
* Not taking the time to look into concepts I don't fully pick up on
* Going for sometimes sub-par solutions to exercises.
* An inefficient study pattern.

So I'm not going to do them any more(nor have I been for the last week or so).

Sicp is still on the menu, but with a big pile of other books to go through it may take a while.

Here's what I got. I'll do some write-ups as I finish reading them.

* Land the tech job you love. I finished this one already. Great advice for interviewing and writing a cv, As well as pitfalls to avoid. I'll be putting together a new resume soon based on its advice and posting that up.

* The pragmatic programmer. Only just got started on this one, but so far it's brilliant. Many of the concepts I have been doing... Halfheartedly. I have been applying DRY("don't repeat yourself") to most of my work, but when deadlines come close or I just want to finish something up... Out comes the copy and paste. In the end it's never worth it. Formalising these ideas in my head is sure to be a great help.

* Code complete: next in line after the pragmatic programmer. I should have read this one years ago.

* Facts and fallacies of software engineering. Good train reading as each fact is pretty snappy and to the point. However the fact that half his references are coming from himself is a matter of some concern. 25% added complexity adding 100% workload is a concept that I have experienced time and time again, and having it stated clearly really helps to be more aware of it.

* How to win friends and influence people. This one's courtesy of Joel Spolsky's reading list. I'm pretty much a geek and so I often get frustrated with non-programmers and their inability to understand what seem like simple things. This attitude is counter-productive though so I'm working on improving it. As cheesy as this book may seem, it gives some very practical advice that should be obvious but isn't.

* Rapid development. Another frequently recommended McConnell tome. I look forward to getting to this too though for now it lies in my shelf awaiting its turn.

* Head first design patterns. Another one waiting its turn.

* Out of the Crisis Next in line for more "businessy" stuff after I get done with Drucker.

More are in the mail as we speak, including peopleware.

Refinding the joy of reading has been great so far, but there is a lot of material I've waited for too long to get around to. This should be interesting.