Y Hacker News Books

Ask HN: What's the best book you've read regarding software development? ↗

The books people recommended

2025-01-13 · 39 points · 42 comments · 21 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.

  1. 5

    The Mythical Man-Month

    Frederick Brooks Jr.

    5 here · 137 all-time · #13 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,811 ratings on Amazon
  2. 2

    Code Complete

    Steve McConnell

    2 here · 108 all-time · #22 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 1,353 ratings on Amazon
  3. 2

    Designing Data-Intensive Applications

    Martin Kleppmann

    2 here · 104 all-time · #24 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 5,595 ratings on Amazon
  4. 2

    The Pragmatic Programmer

    Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

    2 here · 102 all-time · #26 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 3,644 ratings on Amazon
  5. 2

    Design Patterns

    Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

    2 here · 80 all-time · #42 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 27 ratings on Amazon
  6. 2

    Refactoring

    Martin Fowler

    2 here · 37 all-time · #132 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,228 ratings on Amazon
  7. 2

    Crafting Interpreters

    Robert Nystrom

    2 here · 32 all-time · #175 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 734 ratings on Amazon
  8. 2Programming Perl

    Programming Perl

    Larry Wall

    2 here · 9 all-time · #765 overall

  9. 1

    The C Programming Language

    Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie

    1 here · 124 all-time · #15 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 182 ratings on Amazon
  10. 1

    Founders at Work

    Jessica Livingston

    1 here · 51 all-time · #80 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 689 ratings on Amazon
  11. 1

    Clean Code

    Robert C. Martin

    1 here · 47 all-time · #91 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 6,810 ratings on Amazon
  12. 1A Philosophy of Software Design

    A Philosophy of Software Design

    John Ousterhout

    1 here · 42 all-time · #116 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 2,832 ratings on Amazon
  13. 1

    Programming Pearls

    Jon Bentley

    1 here · 35 all-time · #145 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 402 ratings on Amazon
  14. 1Coders at Work

    Coders at Work

    Peter Seibel

    1 here · 27 all-time · #213 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 330 ratings on Amazon
  15. 1

    Domain Driven Design

    Eric Evans

    1 here · 21 all-time · #289 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 1,578 ratings on Amazon
  16. 1Effective Java

    Effective Java

    Joshua Bloch

    1 here · 21 all-time · #293 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,623 ratings on Amazon
  17. 1Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

    Martin Fowler

    1 here · 15 all-time · #417 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 890 ratings on Amazon
  18. 1C Programming: A Modern Approach

    C Programming: A Modern Approach

    K. N. King

    1 here · 13 all-time · #500 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 384 ratings on Amazon
  19. 1Game Programming Patterns

    Game Programming Patterns

    Robert Nystrom

    1 here · 11 all-time · #577 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,556 ratings on Amazon
  20. 1Clean Architecture

    Clean Architecture

    Robert C. Martin

    1 here · 7 all-time · #1021 overall

  21. 1SQL Performance Explained

    SQL Performance Explained

    Markus Winand

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1820 overall