Bookshelf
Currently Reading
- TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1, 2nd Edition (takes years … :) )
- Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective (takes years, too … :) )
Favourites
A Philosophy Of Software Design (John Ousterhout). This book has had a very big influence on the way I think about software design. One of my favourite insights: “Modules should be deep (a lot of funcitonality), ideally with a small interface.”
Let’s Go (Alex Edwards). This does explain fairly little about Go (e.g. no explanation on concurrency model, interfaces, etc.), but it is an excellent course on how to build HTTP servers or backends in Golang. This has been a very (very) useful resource. In fact, I have built this website initially by following along Let’s Go :)
Chronology
Tech books are hard to list here, since they take a long time to work on (years).
2025:
- Hypermedia Systems | Carson Gross et. al. | 5⁄5
- The Millionaire Fastlane | MJ DeMarco | 5⁄5
- Der Dunkle Wald (Die Trisolaris-Trilogie 2) | Cixin Liu | 5⁄5
- The Murderbot Diaries 1 | Martha Wells | 5⁄5
2024:
- Children Of Time | Adrian Tchaikovsky | 4⁄5
- Daring Greatly | Brené Brown | 4⁄5
- Attached | Amir Levine, Rachel Heller | 3.5⁄5
- Hold Me Tight | Dr. Sue Johnson | 5⁄5
- A Court Of Thorns And Roses | Sarah J. Maas | 3.5⁄5
- The Way Of The Superior Man | David Deida | 3.5⁄5
- How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (The How To Talk Series) | Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish | 4.5⁄5
- Dune 1 | Frank Herbert | 5⁄5
- Artemis | Andy Weir | 5⁄5
- Prometheus: Up And Running (2nd Edition) | Brian Brazil, Julien Pivotto | 3⁄5 | I have spent many hours with that book. I have got good at Prometheus, Grafana and PromQL, but on the one hand, I have found the book too difficult at times, and on the other hand, lacking details in a few places, and I was annoyed by all the footnotes. Footnotes are okay, but there were just too many for my taste, I would have either preferred the information to be either left out or within the prose. The section on PromQL read more like a dictionary than a course. I wish it would have been more course-like. Although I found it rather inaccessible, I became a better engineer by working through it, and I gained the ability to help my team with monitoring and alerting. I might have preferred to take Julian Volz’s online course instead, though.
- Silo 2: Shift | Hugh Howey | 3⁄5
- Silo 1: Wool | Hugh Howey | 5⁄5
2023:
- Radical Collaboration | James W. Tamm | 5⁄5
- The Ideal Team Player | Patrick M. Lencioni | 3.5⁄5
- Crucial Conversations | 4⁄5
- Emotional Intelligence | Daniel Goleman | 4⁄5
- The Big Leap | Gay Hendricks | 4⁄5
- The Strike Novels (1 to 7) | Robert Galbraith | 5⁄5
- Harry Potter | J. K. Rowling | 5⁄5 | I read all seven Harry Potter books in 2023 and I had so much fun. My wife read all the books with me, although she had already read them a few times.
- Die drei Sonnen: Roman (Die Trisolaris-Trilogie 1) | Cixin Liu | 4⁄5
2022:
- Inspired | Marty Cagan | 5⁄5
- Recursion | Blake Crouch | 5⁄5
- Dark Matter | Blake Crouch | 5⁄5
- How To Win Friends And Influence People | Dale Carnegie | 3⁄5
- The Talent Code | Daniel Coyle | 4⁄5
- Ender’s Game | Orson Scott Card | 5⁄5
- Build | Tony Fadell | 4⁄5
- Ready Player One | Ernest Cline | 5⁄5
- Foundation | Isaac Asimonv | 4⁄5
- Shoe Dog | Phil Knight | 4⁄5
- Breath | James Nestor | 4⁄5
- The Martian | Andy Weir | 5⁄5
- Project Hail Mary | Andy Weir | 5⁄5