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Currently it’s a little quite here. I’m now back in Belgium since 2 weeks after a 2 year Norwegian experience. I’ll soon be starting a new job as consultant but in the mean time the best thing to do in such times is trying to keep up with reading and technologies for which you otherwise never have the time to. Many people are posting reading lists on their blog with books they are currently reading, waiting to be read, or wishing they’ll ever read. This is a list of books I’m currently going through, went through recently or are waiting on the shelf to be picked up.
DOMAIN DRIVEN DESIGN – TACKLING COMPLEXITY IN THE HEART OF SOFTWARE
Eric Evans
In the quest of becoming a “better” applications architect and designer, I picked up this book about Domain-Driven Design (DDD). A “new” term in software design that I saw mentioning multiple times in the past few months. It also got a lot of great critic from multiple respected people in this field such as Martin Fowler. And so far, I’m certainly not disappointed of having this book on my shelf. It’s written excellent with practical examples for each chapter and wonderful ideas that keeps your brain working while still reading a book.
PATTERNS OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
Martin Fowler
This book was on the shelf of my previous company and I already started to go through it. It really is a reference book, summing up all kind of patterns grouped by use. It has become my first resource to look up a more about a pattern that is used in some example but has limited knowledge from my side.
REFACTORING – IMPROVING THE DESIGN OF EXISTING CODE
Martin Fowler
Again, a book that I saw first on my previous job. I started to have a quick look through it 2 years ago, but right now it’s waiting for a deeper reading. After all, refactoring has become one of the main things I find myself working on.
PROGRAMMING MICROSOFT ASP.NET 3.5
Dino Esposito
The ASP.NET 3.5 bible. A 1128 pages book that covers all aspects of ASP.NET 3.5 for developers with previous ASP.NET knowledge. Again it’s more a resource book than a learning ASP.NET book but it’s certainly a book that will be very useful on the shelf of every ASP.NET developer.
ASP.NET MVC IN ACTION (MEAP)
Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman and Jimmy Bogard
ASP.NET MVC is almost in release face and I finally found the time to have a deeper look in this “new way of web application developing” after reading over a year about it. ASP.NET MVC in Action is (like all other Manning books) a well written and understandable overview of this framework. Unfortunately, at this moment it’s still in an early access program. This means not all chapters are yet available, errors can be found in the chapters and the source code is mainly still written with the Preview 3 of ASP.NET MVC, which in many ways differences a lot from the current RC1 release.
This book has become one of the main resources of the re-writing project of this blog using ASP.NET MVC and the more I read about it, the more I start loving it.
DEVELOPING MORE-SECURE MICROSOFT ASP.NET 2.0 APPLICATIONS
Dominick Baier
A book that I already own for over a year or so but certainly still worthwhile to mention. Again, it’s a book that every developer who’s serious about web application security should have on their shelf. Though it says “ASP.NET 2.0” it is certainly all applicable on 3.5 and it covers security of the web (HTTP etc) and not just the ASP.NET technology.
STATE OF FEAR
Michael Crichton
Not everything has to be technical. I love a good novel, and Michael Crichton is certainly on top of the list. You may know his books better through the film versions such as Jurassic Park, The Congo Expedition, Sphere and The Lost World. His books always combine state of the art technologies or scientific subjects in a very readable thriller which becomes very difficult to lay aside after starting the first chapter. It was a shock a few days ago to read that he died in November 2008. So I started to read his books over again.