On the (virtual) Coffee Table
Posted by Skrud at Monday, February 13th 2006 at 1:19am
Since Kathy Sierra’s asking what’s on your (virtual) coffee table?, I figured I’d take a look my all-purpose-surface-for-stuff. There was a forum post on this a long while back which I can’t find …. maybe it’s time for a thread revival/recreation.
So here’s what I’ve got for clutter atm:
- Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by Stevens & Rago, because I have a programming assignment due on Tuesday (even though it’s finished, I still have some cleaning and tweaking to do on the code).
- Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell, more of a Unix reference than anything else - I haven’t looked at it in a while though but it’s still on my desk!
- Dead Like Me - both seasons on DVD. Hooray for boxing day!
- Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and UML Distilled, because of all those SOEN courses this semester.
- The Mythical Man-Month, the “definitive” collection of essays on Software Engineering - which I haven’t even got around to opening yet.
- Battle Royale, the novel I’m currently reading. I had to put it on hiatus for a while but picked it up again. It’s amazing how a book that’s essentially about a class of 9th graders who are sent to a remote island to kill each other can be so … deep. This book is incredible.
- Hackers. I don’t care what anyone else says, this movie is a helluva lot of fun, and I was watching it yesterday in the background while coding.
- Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails. The book on Rails.
- C++ Primer Plus. I brought it to Eng Games with me and still haven’t put it away anywhere. It’s a great reference … but I don’t use it all that often.
- The C Programming Language. This actually belongs to Josh, but this is the original C Programming book by Kernighan and Ritchie. Not even the updated version that follows ANSI C. This is the 1978 functions-look-funny edition. Still, the best reference/book on C ever.
- The Prodigy: Their Law (The Singles 1995-2005). A best-of, and some of the best coding music. Ever.
- NTC’s New Japanese-English Character Dictionary. The biggest dictionary I’ve ever seen. This was a birthday present from a lot of people. I don’t use it as often as I should, though. In fact, I often sit and wonder “Hey, I wonder what japanese word means?” and completely forget the fact that there’s a dictionary right beside me.
Wow, this post made me feel a whole lot nerdier than I would normally admit to being. I’m afraid the less geeky books are all off on a bookshelf somewhere, and not within visual range. I should bring some of those books over to my desk so that next time someone asks me what’s on it, I’ll have more interesting things to say.
Oh!! This book is on my guitar amp, which I can’t see from where I’m sitting right now, but I stare at constantly while rocking out: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I read it a long time ago and I loved it (though not as much as Slaughterhouse-Five).
My desk is ummm.. occupied at the moment. Somehow I’ve filled it up with so much junk that books can’t fit.
So here’s what’s on my floor around my computer chair. (Literally)
American Gods - Neil Gaiman Operating System Concepts - Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne Expert Systems Principles and Programming - Giarratano, Riley International Relations, The Changing Contours of Power - Snow, Brown K7S41GX Quick Installation Guide (does that count as a book?)
So basically, 1 sci-fi book, 2 class textbooks for this semester and one from last semester that I haven’t gotten around to putting away yet.
Other stuff that hasn’t been used recently got kicked into the bedroom so it’s on the floor out over there =)
the mythical man month is so good that once you start you will be compelled to finish it…what is so sad is that most if not all the advice still applies today, we have learned nothing (or at least we aren’t applying what we have learned).
yeah i keep a copy of the 2nd edition of K&R, it has some mentions of ANSI but it isn’t full blown ANSI i don’t think, this was the oldest i could find. the computer geeks bible.
oh, one book you should add to your desk when you find a free spot is Code Complete 2nd edition. this is my current skytrain reading material.
right now my movie of choice is aardvark’d.
My feelings about the mythical man month are a little mixed: I flipped through it at Camelot, on University st., and didn’t find anything that really blew me away—everything I read in there seemed obvious.
The virtual coffee table thing on the other hand is really quite a delicious concept that I’ve been hoping to work on since September, 2004. I’m thinking of Rails and Alexandria.
Also: Trackback #2 on Kathy’s blog? Oooh…