Roy Tang

Books I’ve finished reading in the past few months:

Rapid Development by Steve McConnell – I was browsing through my company’s small library of development books and found this little gem among the usual language-specific tomes. A bit old, but I know from Code Complete that Steve McConnell really hits in the mark with regard to software best practices. This book is aimed mainly at technical leads — coincidentally, that was my role at the time. I picked up a lot of good ideas, hopefully I can start to make some interesting changes in the place I work at.

Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas – yeah, I’ve been in a sort of “improving my software development skills” mode lately, snapping up books like this and the previous one and going through them like life depended on it. Lots of sagely advice here, mostly stuff good developers know about inherently, and quite a few good ideas new to me.

Ang Alamat ng Gubat by Bob Ong – literally translated, it’s “The Forest Legend”; the book is somewhat of a modern-day fable about how things are in the modern-day Philippines. I’m pretty sure each of the animals in the book represents some sector of society and its’ faults, but I don’t think I’m currently smart enough to identify them all.

Stainless Longganisa by Bob Ong – I picked up this and the previous book on a whim at National Bookstore, because we were sorely in need of new bathroom reading material. (I’m not kidding, and bathroom reading material should be a treasured position among authors.) As usual, Bob Ong starts off with some hilarious real-life tales, before heading into some serious stuff about life in the Philippines. The main thrust of this book is to explain how and why he became a writer, giving the reader some insights into what aspiring writers in the Philippines can look forward to (or avoid.)

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett – I think this is the third Discworld book, but it’s only the first one I finished. I’m not sure, it seems like the Discworld books make relatively quick and painless reading. It’s light fantasy of course, much the same way that Douglas Adams is light sci-fi; not the sort of thing you should seriously form a whole range of theories about, but fascinating nonetheless. I believe I will try to read more of these books.