Ask HN: Books you should have read when you start a career in SE / CS?
Three boks I'll recommend you read as soon as possible.<p>1) The Mythical Man month<p>3) The Pragmatic Programmer<p>3) Code Complete.<p>The thing about these books, well atleast 1 and 3 is that when they were written they broke new ground.  Or if that phrase bother you, they were the first mainstream publications that brought their core ideas to developers.<p>Reading these books early in your career will help cement these best practices.<p>Reading these books after you've been a practicing programmer means,IMHO, that the return you get from reading them goes way way down.<p>You'll find that you've already learned all/most? of what they are trying to teach.<p>You'll find yourself getting frustrated that they are preaching what you already know as common sense and first principles.<p>Or put another way, I'm not sure there is much that someone who has programmed for 5-10 years can get out of those books that they haven't picked up somewhere else already or learned the hard way.