Some books are references and some are read throughs. I read Code Complete while in college and thought it really helped my programming. Effective Java is another great book that I've read. The Pragmatic Programmer is another one that I've read that really is worth the time.
Many books are just good references though. Pick it up and read a chapter for example. I think the more experience a programmers gets the less they need to read right through a book. When looking at a book on a particular language I can usually skip the first half because I know the parts that are common across most languages. I only need to know what's different/cool/idiomatic in this particular language.
Algorithm books are another example that falls into mostly the reference category. I don't think I've read any entire algo book, but I have read many chapters from many different algo books that touched on what I needed to learn at the time.
Some books are references and some are read throughs. I read Code Complete while in college and thought it really helped my programming. Effective Java is another great book that I've read. The Pragmatic Programmer is another one that I've read that really is worth the time.
Many books are just good references though. Pick it up and read a chapter for example. I think the more experience a programmers gets the less they need to read right through a book. When looking at a book on a particular language I can usually skip the first half because I know the parts that are common across most languages. I only need to know what's different/cool/idiomatic in this particular language.
Algorithm books are another example that falls into mostly the reference category. I don't think I've read any entire algo book, but I have read many chapters from many different algo books that touched on what I needed to learn at the time.