Kindle edition of Effective Programming by Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror) for $0.00
amazon.comThis seems to basically be a bunch of Jeff's blog posts in book form. Some of it is interesting to facilitate discussions but how much more "effective" a programmer it will make you seems pretty dubious.
I would recommend reading the book "code complete" for more specific tips about thinking about the code you write.
I second the recommendation for Code Complete. If you're looking for tactical construction advice, better to take it from someone with an established history of having constructed software.
I too would favour Steve McConnell's _Code Complete_ over Jeff's blog-post collection but having read the book when it came out, i.e. not recently, I wasn't too keen overall, perhaps it was McConnell's Microsoft background.
My preference is Kernighan and Pike's _The Practice of Programming_, TPoP, that's Kernighan as in the `k' in awk and K&R, and Pike as in Blit, sam, and now #golang. The book's home page has a sample chapter and a war story that didn't make it into the book. http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020161586X/mqq-20 http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/tpop/
There's no doubt that it's a very extensive book on software development and a very good one but I personally don't recommend it. If one really wants to know about software development, I find that it's much better to join an open source project and discuss the development of the project with other people than just reading about software development. It's almost the same thing as learning everything about an internal combustion engine but having no idea how to fix one.
In hindsight perhaps I shouldn't have bought the kindle edition of the book (Code Complete) because it's a very large book and it's not those kinds of books where we must read from cover to cover and I don't think it's very practical to read those books in a kindle but perhaps it's just me. Just my 2 cents.
I agree with this. As a senior, I followed Jeff's recommendation and bought Code Complete, but I found that a lot of it is becoming mainstream language. A book that thought me more personally is Effective Java, because I think some of its sections go way beyond Java and touch on some serious issues developers deal with, like how you structure and document APIs, when to use some patterns and so on..
StackOverflow is constructed software. I don't agree with much of Geoff's writings, but I do admire his output.
Is there some way to get alerted about other such $0 offers from Kindle?
You mean the guy who thinks you should email yourself your passwords to store them safely?
Do you have a reference for that? Was quite shocked by that and searching his site found a couple of sensible articles about security, but nothing about emailing yourself your passwords. May just be that my google-fu isn't good enough.
Second to last paragraph: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hac...
Presumably that is based on his assumption that once the web app receives an email via https and it is to a gmail user, they don't send the message via email (i.e. it never travels over an insecure channel). It may be a reasonable assumption, but seems a little strange to boast about exactly how secure it is.
The funny thing is that many sites does password reset via email anyway.
Most passwords resets do not mail you the password; they usually mail you a unique URL which you can use to reset the password, which often generates a second mail telling you the password was changed.
That prevents anyone from "sneaking" into your account, even if the can snoop your mail / copy your inbox. You'll see the intrusion, and you'll be unable to log into the service after the password is changed.
Storing the password in plain-text in your inbox has none of that protection.
Looks like the offer has now ended. I'm seeing the US version for $4.79 and the UK version is £3.02.
True. It was $0 for me yesterday but not today. This reinforces my unhealthy belief that I must check my news feeds constantly throughout the day, everyday, nonstop, lest I miss out on... saving $5. :)
I have never picked up a software dev book and used it to learn development, mostly just learned by doing. I was curious though, how do most of you read these things? Do you practice while reading, or can I take my iPad to a secluded area and just read my way through it? Any response would be appreciate, thanks!
The method that works for me:
1. Give the book a quick read. Essentially just to know what it covered and how the book approaches/covers the topics you are interested in.
2. Now that you know what the book covers and have a fuzzy idea about it, go straight to the section that concerns you most as the need arrises.
No such love for us Nook users. I checked Atwood's site for maybe a posting pointing to a free epub version, no go there either. Sad panda.
You still can buy it for the kindle pc app. Then, with Calibre, you can remove the DRM and convert it to epub or whatever format is suitable for the nook.
> Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
There is no DRM on this book, luckily enough.
But its still in Amazon's ebook format. Calibre allows you to convert it to something a Nook can read.
I could be wrong, but doesn't the author make no money from these "deals" and have no say in whether they happen? I'm not sure that's something I'd like to do to an author I like.
The publisher gets a minimum royalty/commission per sale, regardless of how Amazon discounts promotion, except in the case where the publisher joins the Free X of the Day rotation.
It says $6.60 when I check the page. Because I'm browsing from outside the US? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
I think the offer is closed. I was able to download the free copy from outside US. Maybe just a 24 hour offer.
Due to copyright restrictions, the Kindle title you're trying to purchase is not available in your country: Germany.
Unless, of course, you were to look at amazon.de, where the book is just as freely available as at amazon.co.uk or amazon.com.
At least it was a few hours ago. Now it is back to its normal price.
Yep. How incredibly lame again :(
I think, that this kind of post ir misleading. During past month there has been several of those "Kindle edition for free", which does not represent actual price (at least for people not from USA). Same here - edition I see (from Latvia) is priced at $7.59.
Awesome eBook for free is awesome. Just bought it for my Kindle and for sure I'll be reading this during the weekend.
Thanks for the tip! ;)
You're welcome :)
Not in the UK - why TF not?
UK developers are already far too effective?
FR link: http://www.amazon.fr/dp/B008HUMTO0
Amazon.com redirects to the UK homepage when you click "Continue shopping on Amazon UK" for some bizarre reason.
Although a lot of pathnames match across US-UK, I don't think they've fully harmonised all the IDs or have any efficient way to tell which ones actually match. So apparently they're just playing safe by redirecting to homepage.
I'm not surprised as even those geo-targeted "Continue shopping" messages are fairly recent. I once wrote a Teleporter script to switch between Amazons (http://softwareas.com/domain-teleporter-greasemonkey-script) and if they're redirecting to homepage, it's still useful!
But the offer is there:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Programming-More-Writing-e...
100% of Jeff's posts are must reads. You'll agree with some, disagree with others, but all of them make you think. Worth twice the $0 cost!!!
Yeah. This should be awesome. twice the $0 also means $0 too.
Sweet, I look forward to reading this. Thanks
Just in time for the long weekend! :)
Oh my, did I not say thank you!?
Thank you for the link! I love Jeff Atwood! CodingHorror.com's RSS is one of my favorite Google Reader Feeds
Haha, I'm with you there, big thanks!
Thanks for the link
Not in Europe.
US: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_qf_s... DE: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_a... FR: http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_a... ES: http://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_a... IT: http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B008HUMTO0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_a...
Great Book