Originally published on February 1, 2021. The original version included two books I don't think are actually so worthwhile. This list is down to two. I think that's a good thing actually.

These are the books I recommend to developers wanting to improve their skills as professional programmers because of high information density, believable premises/examples, and being well edited.

You don't need to read books to improve as a developer but they are unparalleled in quickly helping you gain depth in a subject.

High Performance Browser Networking

If you deal with networks, you would probably benefit from this book. It is a thorough high level introduction to mobile networks, browser network protocols, and fundamentals of networking.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

If you use a database (including an in-memory array of items you search periodically) or if you build APIs, you would probably benefit from this book. A solid introduction to distributed computing, data transfer, indexing, etc.

That's it!

Generic software books conspicuously not on this list for me:

• Clean Code
• JavaScript the Good Parts
• Design Patterns/Gang of Four
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• A Philosophy of Software Design

They're not all bad but give nowhere near as much return for the investment of your time.

Four books I recommend to professional developers wanting to improve their craft, and a few I'd nothttps://t.co/1aTrfqZ9bd

— Phil Eaton (@phil_eaton) February 2, 2021

Originally published on December 5, 2021.

If you are an experienced software developer whose only exposure to reddit is dank memes, proggit or even language-specific subreddits like /r/python, you're missing out.

What follows are my favorite subreddits in tech. My criteria is that:

• The subreddit topic is relevant to advancing as a programmer
• Posts generally go into good depth
• The comments stay on topic
• And the shit-posting is minimal

This list isn't hard to guess at if you consider advanced topics in software. But I wanted to share because I think it's worth explicitly supporting high-quality subreddits.

• /r/EmuDev
  • My favorite sub of all. Also has a phenomenal Discord group.
• /r/ProgrammingLanguages
  • Focuses a little more on PLT topics (parsing techniques, syntax, type systems) than on compiling and interpreting techniques, but still good.
• /r/DatabaseDevelopment
  • All about database internals, which ends up involving a bunch of correctness and distributed systems stuff as well.
  • Disclosure: I run this sub. It's at 2.7k+ members at time of publishing.
• /r/ReverseEngineering
  • The largest subreddit on this list but still has pretty good posts.
• /r/EsoLangs
  • One of the best/most fun intros to programming languages/compilers/interpreters is through languages like Brainfuck. This sub does a good job of keeping the fun going.
• /r/Compilers
• /r/GraphicsProgramming

While some language subreddits are pretty good, they are more so a mixed bag than some of the topic-specific subreddits here. So they don't make my list, more on principle than anything else.

If there is a good one already, send me it!

What am I missing?

Am I missing other amazing subreddits? Just don't say language-specific ones. :)

It's an incorrect meme IMO that tech Reddit is low-quality. You just have to find the interesting subreddits.

I've updated my list for 2023.https://t.co/OtM2tk8HOn pic.twitter.com/ymyzChp0SO

— Phil Eaton (@eatonphil) May 16, 2023

Amazon claims that Aurora has “Up to 5X the throughput of MySQL”. Is it true? It wasn’t easy to find the truth, but I kept digging until I found it. This is a long read; let’s chase the rabbit all the way down the hole.