Software Engineers Top Books

Definition of Software Engineering: "The systematic application of scientific and technological knowledge, methods, and experience to the design, implementation, testing, and documentation of software"—The Bureau of Labor Statistics—IEEE Systems and Software Engineering.
Software Engineering is the science that study the modality of producing and constructing high quality software, and the process of producing software is divided into some sub processes and phases, or as we name it in Software Engineering Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
Software Development Life Cycle describes a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. SDLC has many models such as Agile, Waterfall, Spiral, Prototyping..etc and each model has it's own phases and attributes that is most suitable for specific systems according to it's specifications.
There are many books that explains some topics in software engineering, but there is an essential list of books that any software engineer must read to boost his skills:

1- Code Complete II: You must read this book if you are going to be a great software engineer. Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell’s original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices—and hundreds of new code samples—illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking—and help you build the highest quality code.Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you:

• Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity
• Reap the benefits of collaborative development
• Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors
• Exploit opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do it safely
• Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project
• Debug problems quickly and effectively
• Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly
• Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project [1]

2- Clean Code: Even bad code can function. But if code isn’t clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Readers will come away from this book understanding

• How to tell the difference between good and bad code
• How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code
• How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes
• How to format code for maximum readability
• How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic
• How to unit test and practice test-driven development [2]

3- The Clean Coder: In The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers, legendary software expert Robert C. Martin introduces the disciplines, techniques, tools, and practices of true software craftsmanship. This book is packed with practical advice–about everything from estimating and coding to refactoring and testing. It covers much more than technique: It is about attitude. Martin shows how to approach software development with honor, self-respect, and pride; work well and work clean; communicate and estimate faithfully; face difficult decisions with clarity and honesty; and understand that deep knowledge comes with a responsibility to act.
Readers will learn:

• What it means to behave as a true software craftsman
• How to deal with conflict, tight schedules, and unreasonable managers
• How to get into the flow of coding, and get past writer’s block
• How to handle unrelenting pressure and avoid burnout
• How to combine enduring attitudes with new development paradigms
• How to manage your time, and avoid blind alleys, marshes, bogs, and swamps
• How to foster environments where programmers and teams can thrive
• When to say “No”–and how to say it
• When to say “Yes”–and what yes really means [3]

4- Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software: This book really cleared up a lot of the “Magic” that goes into creating and developing complex systems. There are so many abstractions these days that the low level details are sometimes unknown to the developer. Though you may not find yourself using this book 24/7 in practice…I believe it is a good idea to have an understanding of what you are building on top of and how the whole orchestration works. It may come in handy when you need to open up that “Black Box” and deep dive into the software or hardware to fix a pesky bug. “CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software” by Charles Petzold deals with a number of programming concepts starting from number systems – decimal, octal, binary to high level languages. The book explains packet based communication protocols and TCP. Many chapters are about hardware concepts and five chapters are devoted for software and explain about the operating system, floating point arithmetic and GUIs. [2]

5- Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object Oriented Software:  If you are planning to be an architect or designer of a system, you will most likely be required to read this book. Hailed as one of the greatest software development books ever written, this books goes into great detail on the many different design patterns that have been developed over the years to help software engineers avoid and handle common problems that the industry faces. Following the stategies in this book will allow you to build higher quality, flexible, and maintainable software. This book also goes by the name “Gang of Four” in software groups because of its famous 4 authors that put this book together. [2]

6- Introduction to Algorithms: Some books on algorithms are rigorous but incomplete; others cover masses of material but lack rigor.Introduction to Algorithms uniquely combines rigor and comprehensiveness. The book covers a broad range of algorithms in depth, yet makes their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers. Each chapter is relatively self-contained and can be used as a unit of study. The algorithms are described in English and in a pseudocode designed to be readable by anyone who has done a little programming. The explanations have been kept elementary without sacrificing depth of coverage or mathematical rigor. [2]

7- Programming Pearls (2nd edition): This book is slightly different from the other books on the list. I would say this book helps a person “think like a programmer”. Programming Pearls is a compendium of 15 columns previously published in Communications of the ACM. The columns cover a wide range of topics related to programming: from requirements gathering to performance tuning. The focus is primarily on coding techniques and algorithms.Each column has been reorganized as a chapter. Chapters usually start with the presentation of a practical problem. Then various solutions are presented and are used as lessons to be learned. The writing style is clear and fun.
Programming Pearls is not a usual book teaching new programming concepts. Although it contains good and sometimes quite novel ideas, the aim of the book is not to teach something new but to help you become a better problem solver. [2]

8- Refactoring - Improving the Design of Existing Code: “Refactoring” by Martin Fowler is about improving the design of existing code. It is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code, yet improves its internal structure. With refactoring you can even take a bad design and rework it into a good one. This book offers a thorough discussion of the principles of refactoring, including where to spot opportunities for refactoring, and how to set up the required tests. There is also a catalog of more than 40 proven refactorings with details as to when and why to use the refactoring, step by step instructions for implementing it, and an example illustrating how it works The book is written using Java as its principle language, but the ideas are applicable to any OO language. [2]

9- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: With an analytical and rigorous approach to problem solving and programming techniques, this book is oriented toward engineering. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models. Its unique approach makes it appropriate for an introduction to computer science courses, as well as programming languages and program design. The book further explains the four trends of programming languages – imperative, object-oriented, logic based and applicative programming. [2]

10- The Pragmatic Programmer: Some of the authors’ nuggets of pragmatism are concrete, and the path to their implementation is clear. They advise readers to learn one text editor, for example, and use it for everything. They also recommend the use of version-tracking software for even the smallest projects, and promote the merits of learning regular expression syntax and a text-manipulation language. Other (perhaps more valuable) advice is more light-hearted. In the debugging section, it is noted that, “if you see hoof prints think horses, not zebras.” That is, suspect everything, but start looking for problems in the most obvious places. There are recommendations for making estimates of time and expense, and for integrating testing into the development process. You’ll want a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer for two reasons: it displays your own accumulated wisdom more cleanly than you ever bothered to state it, and it introduces you to methods of work that you may not yet have considered. [2]

11- Working Effectively with Legacy Code: In this book, Michael Feathers offers start-to-finish strategies for working more effectively with large, untested legacy code bases. This book draws on material Michael created for his renowned Object Mentor seminars: techniques Michael has used in mentoring to help hundreds of developers, technical managers, and testers bring their legacy systems under control. [2]

12- The Mythical Man-Month: This book is a classic, but recently revised and corrected. The amazing thing is how relevant the book still is to software product development. If you are involved in software, this book is a must-read. The most valuable part of the book, I believe, is the “plan to throw out” prototype chapter. While the goal is always to make a bigger, better, fast whatever, it is almost an axiom that you WILL build something that has to be discarded and reworked. This absolutely happens every time, I can tell you from first-hand experience. Therefore, it is vital to plan to throw out so you can migrate your users to whatever will follow. If you dream that the first product is THE ONE, you risk abandoning them on a product that will inevitably evolve. Planning the throw-away also helps meet the schedule goals by setting reasonable milestones that can be met. [2]

13- Coders at Work: This is a who's who in the programming world - a fascinating look at how some of the best in the world do their work. Patterned after the best selling Founders at Work, the book represents two years of interviews with some of the top programmers of our times. [4]

14- Concrete Mathematics: This book introduces the mathematics that supports advanced computer programming and the analysis of algorithms. The primary aim of its well-known authors is to provide a solid and relevant base of mathematical skills - the skills needed to solve complex problems, to evaluate horrendous sums, and to discover subtle patterns in data. It is an indispensable text and reference not only for computer scientists - the authors themselves rely heavily on it! - but for serious users of mathematics in virtually every discipline. [5]

15- The Art of Computer Programming: Countless readers have spoken about the profound personal influence of Knuth’s work. Scientists have marveled at the beauty and elegance of his analysis, while ordinary programmers have successfully applied his “cookbook” solutions to their day-to-day problems. All have admired Knuth for the breadth, clarity, accuracy, and good humor found in his books.
I can’t begin to tell you how many pleasurable hours of study and recreation they have afforded me! I have pored over them in cars, restaurants, at work, at home… and even at a Little League game when my son wasn’t in the line-up.
—Charles Long

Primarily written as a reference, some people have nevertheless found it possible and interesting to read each volume from beginning to end. A programmer in China even compared the experience to reading a poem.
If you think you’re a really good programmer… read [Knuth’s] Art of Computer Programming… You should definitely send me a résumé if you can read the whole thing.
—Bill Gates

Whatever your background, if you need to do any serious computer programming, you will find your own good reason to make each volume in this series a readily accessible part of your scholarly or professional library.
It’s always a pleasure when a problem is hard enough that you have to get the Knuths off the shelf. I find that merely opening one has a very useful terrorizing effect on computers.
—Jonathan Laventhol [6]

16- The Passionate Programmer: Success in today's IT environment requires you to view your career as a business endeavor. In this book, you'll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You'll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product. After all, your skills themselves are a product. [7]

17- The Practice of Programming: The practice of programming is more than just writing code. Programmers must also assess tradeoffs, choose among design alternatives, debug and test, improve performance, and maintain software written by themselves and others. At the same time, they must be concerned with issues like compatibility, robustness, and reliability, while meeting specifications.
The Practice of Programming covers all these topics, and more. This book is full of practical advice and real-world examples in C, C++, Java, and a variety of special-purpose languages. It includes chapters on:

• debugging: finding bugs quickly and methodically
• testing: guaranteeing that software works correctly and reliably
• performance: making programs faster and more compact
• portability: ensuring that programs run everywhere without change
• design: balancing goals and constraints to decide which algorithms and data structures are best
• interfaces: using abstraction and information hiding to control the interactions between components
• style: writing code that works well and is a pleasure to read
• notation: choosing languages and tools that let the machine do more of the work [8]

18- Think Like a Programmer: The real challenge of programming isn't learning a language's syntax—it's learning to creatively solve problems so you can build something great. In this one-of-a-kind text, author V. Anton Spraul breaks down the ways that programmers solve problems and teaches you what other introductory books often ignore: how to Think Like a Programmer. Each chapter tackles a single programming concept, like classes, pointers, and recursion, and open-ended exercises throughout challenge you to apply your knowledge. You'll also learn how to:

• Split problems into discrete components to make them easier to solve
• Make the most of code reuse with functions, classes, and libraries
• Pick the perfect data structure for a particular job
• Master more advanced programming tools like recursion and dynamic memory
• Organize your thoughts and develop strategies to tackle particular types of problems

Although the book's examples are written in C++, the creative problem-solving concepts they illustrate go beyond any particular language; in fact, they often reach outside the realm of computer science. As the most skillful programmers know, writing great code is a creative art—and the first step in creating your masterpiece is learning to Think Like a Programmer. [9]

And that's end of list, if you've any opinions or additional must-read books, please mention it below in the comments.

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