From: Mat Schaffer <schapht@...>
Date: 2007-01-03T00:50:34+09:00
Subject: Re: General Programming Books


On Jan 2, 2007, at 8:57 AM, Felipe Navas wrote:

> I'm currently coursing my fourth year (of five) in Computer Science.
> I can make a lot of (cool) things but my code isn't the most
> politically correct ;)
>
> In academic universe people don't talk about unit-test, design  
> patterns, etc...
> Software Engineering it's at most theoretical, not practical.
>
> There's something like: "Academics to Real World - What really need to
> know but then never told you" ?
>
> What you'd recommend ?
>
> Thanks

If Rails interests you, I found Agile Web Development with Rails had  
a good first section that walked through the development of a simple  
app.  It was a nice blend of rails code and agile project flow.   
Included unit testing basics, short feedback loops, not so much  
design patterns.

I'm currently reading Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck,  
which seems good so far.  It's short and is totally about the  
process, which I never got much of in my 5 years of CS.  You don't go  
to Drexel by any chance, do you? :)

Honestly, my favorite primer to patterns was in Matt Zandstra's PHP 5  
Objects, Patterns and Practices.  But if you're not interested in  
PHP, it's probably not for you.  I haven't seen a Patterns for Ruby  
book yet, but maybe I just missed it.  I find that some patterns  
become unnecessary when you change languages, so it'd be great to see  
something ruby specific.

-Mat