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Posts Tagged ‘books’

Continuing my research on the Essential Reading List for Web Designers, System Architects, Technologists and “other-ologists”. And before I forget — check out my blogroll. The writers (bloggers) on my blog roll are very important (or they wouldn’t be on my blog roll). I’ve been reading some of these blogs for several years. Scroll down and review the blogroll list on the right hand side column (about half-way down).

Remember — this is a survey of books, blogs and magazines that people are recommending to me. I haven’t distilled the list down yet… still collecting suggestions from friends… My friend Antoine told me to look at Digital Web Magazine – they publish a variety of articles of interest to web designers, web developers, etc.

Here’s a few books that Antoine mentioned:

1. Designing With Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman, published by Peachpit Press, 2007, ISBN:0321385551, 410 pages (and you know I’ve recommended Zeldman’s book a Zillion times)
2. Web Accessibility, Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance, by Jim Thatcher, Michael R. Burks, Christian Heilmann, Shawn Lawton Henry, Patrick H. Lauke, Richard Rutter; published by Friends of ED, 2006, ISBN:1590596382, 648 pages
3. The Zen of CSS Design, by Dave Shea, and Molly E. Holzschlag; Published by Peachpit Press, 2005, ISBN:0321303474, 296 pages
4. The Business Side of Creativity, The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design Or Communications Business, by Cameron S. Foote, Illustrated by Mark Bellerose;Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, ISBN:039373093X, 432 pages

Reading for personal growth and professional development -  While writing in my architectural journal, I started down the path of trying to describe my personal reading program for professional development. I documented some of the most important magazines (Byte Magazine was on my essential reading list — 25 years ago), books and blogs for a computer systems architect. That got me wondering about what books or blogs I was missing out on. Was I missing something really important? To be a great computer systems architect, one needs to read great books, magazines, and blogs — and go to great conferences — and keep learning every day. So I kept wondering… Was there something missing from my essential reading list?  I started asking a few friends about their essential reading list. Uh-oohhh…  Some friends don’t really read much… (maybe they learn more by attending conferences, etc.) and the ones that do read,  might be on a different career path, so they have different professional development goals.

Context is Everything – For architects, computer programmers, lawyers, philosophers, and theologians – context is everything. The essential reading list for a lawyer is different from the essential reading list of an architect, physician or pastor.  I’m also searching for common themes, and patterns to reuse…

Is there a book (or a blog) that should be essential reading for architects (who build large buildings)  — and for computer architects (who build large computer systems)? I think there might be… and I’m getting to that… hang on a minute…. Are there books and blogs that every designer should read, whether they are designing websites, bikes, book covers, or baby-clothes?

The quest for the best – There are a lot of dead end streets on this quest. For instance, sometimes you find a really cool blog, but alas — the blogger quits blogging. Example: Loosely Coupled – a great blog for software developers and systems architects (covering SOA) – but the last entry appears to be from May 2006.

So, I sent emails to a few friends, saying:

What do you consider essential reading each day, each week, each
month? Books, journals, magazine, blogs?
What technical journals to read each month?
What do you read that keeps you going and growing?
I’m interested in your thoughts.

So, that’s the long contextual explanation as to why I’m building an essential reading list for various professions. Then I want to see if there are common themes — books, magazines, journals, and blogs that are considered essential reading by a lot of people from various backgrounds and professions.

So here’s a few books and blogs that my friends suggested, and guess what? Some of them were already on my blog roll, or books that I’ve read. This is not the distilled list of essential reading… yet… but here are some suggestions that are coming in from my initial survey of computer geeks and web designers…  not a comprehensive survey… (It’s kind of a list from A to Z – with the middle part still missing).

Suggested blogs:

1. 456 Berea Street – A blog by Roger Johansson. A Swedish web professional who has been working with the web and other interactive media since 1994.
2. AlertBox – Jakob Nielsen’s Newsletter on Web Usability
3. A List Apart – A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
4. Authentic Boredom – A blog by web designer Cameron Moll.
5. UXMag – The User Experience Magazine – Elevating user experience one article at a time.
6. Zeldman – Online since May 1995, “Jeffrey Zeldman Presents” is the personal site of designer, writer, and web standards guru Jeffrey Zeldman. Zeldman was one of the first designers, bloggers, and independent publishers on the web, and one of the first web design teachers. We’ve mentioned (and reviewed his best selling book), Designing With Web Standards, several times before.

To be continued…

I have 4 exciting new books about JavaScript, that I’m reading and reviewing.

1. JavaScript: The Missing Manual, by David McFarland, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51589-8, 543 pages, US $39.99 ~ A great reference, and tutorial on JavaScript
2. JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Douglas Crockford, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51774-8, 153 pages, US $29.99 ~ A solid JavaScript reference and delightfully opinionated how-to manual for avoiding the bad parts of JavaScript and maximizing use of the good parts.
3. Dojo: The Definitive Guide, by Matthew A. Russell, published by O’Reilly Media, ISBN: 978-0-596-51648-2, 450 pages, US $39.99 ~ The definitive guide for powering up AJAX development techniques with the popular and powerful Dojo JavaScript library.
4. Mastering Dojo, subtitle – JavaScript and Ajax Tools for Great Web Experiences, by Rawld Gill, Craig Riecke, and Alex Russell, published by the Pragmatic Programmers, Pragmatic Bookshelf, ISBN:978-1-934356-11-1, 555 pages, US $38.95 ~ Dojo is a set of client-side  JavaScript tools that help you build better web applications.

Google is celebrating World Book Day today with the Google Literacy Project.

Over the course of time I think Google’s library scanning project will prove to be a greater gift to mankind than YouTube.

Reading a book is like having a long conversation with the author. A long conversation is a gift, as my wife has been teaching me. William Cowper said in his poem entitled Conversation; “… and Conversation in its better part, may be esteemed a gift.”

From Poems by William Cowper

A children’s story about a talking dog, Martha Blah Blah, reminds us of the power of literacy in a funny way. “When the current owner of the soup company breaks the founder’s promise to have every letter of the alphabet in every can of soup, Martha, the talking dog, takes action.”

Read a good book to your children today, or let them read The Important Book to you (it’s all about having a conversation) … and in all your reading, don’t forget the most important book … and thank God for the gifts he gives us every day.