Books

A short list of some of the books that have influenced my thinking over the years.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

Tom Demarco & Timothy Lister · Addison-Wesley Professional

1987 / 1999 (2nd) / 2013 (3rd)

"I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is the one thing every software manager needs to read… not just once, but once a year."

— Joel Spolsky, Co-founder, Stack Overflow

Building Object Applications That Really Work

Scott W. Ambler · Cambridge University Press

1998

This is the book where I learned about the 30-second rule: if another developer can't understand your function within 30 seconds, it is too complicated.

Sadly, it seems to be out of print.

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Robert C. Martin · Addison-Wesley Professional

2nd edition · September 2025

Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design

Robert C. Martin · Pearson

1st edition · September 2017

Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design

Scott Millett & Nick Tune · John Wiley & Sons

1st edition · May 2015

I'll admit that I never read the original Domain-Driven Design book by Eric Evans. This book, though, was excellent in covering all the topics.

Building Microservices

Sam Newman · O'Reilly Media

1st edition · 2015

Great book covering the challenges of building microservices.