Last week while traveling I had time to read Greg Wilson's new book, Data Crunching: Solve Everyday Problems using Java, Python, and more. I think it's nothing short of stellar.
The book says it targets the beginning to intermediate programmer, but I think even seasoned developers will learn from this book, especially those who grew up on systems other than UNIX. Users of UNIX are of course familiar with the collection of classic programs it provides, such as grep, cat, find, sed, and awk, that can quickly be piped together to create incredibly powerful data processing facilities. While this is not a UNIX book, it does describe and promote the same mindset that resulted in those UNIX capabiltiies. That mindset, which has always been useful, is more important than ever given today's focus on software agility. Greg keeps that theme front and center throughout his book.
The book is full of thoughtful, practical examples. Many are written in Python, and some are in Java. There's some XML, some SQL, and even some C as well. All tastefully convey the power of simplicity as well as the utility of having agile tools that can be quickly assembled into larger solutions.
Greg's writing is exceptional. It's minimal and tight, yet it never fails to fully and clearly explain precisely what needs explaining. The fact that it was written so well meant that I tore through the roughly 200 pages in no time, and enjoyed every page. I think even Brian Kernighan would be pretty impressed.
If you have friends or family members who are about to graduate from college and enter the working world as software developers, or if you have folks on your team who have been working as developers for just a few years, get each of them a copy of this book. The fundamentals it will give them will serve them well throughout their careers. And while you're at it, get yourself a copy too, so you can remind yourself how fun it is to be able to quickly put together useful solutions to everyday problems -- when you have the right tools and the right mindset, of course.