So this developer goes through a lot of tech books - most of them are serviceable - they get across what they need to get across. Some of them are great - they’re well written and offer insights into the topic beyond just getting across how things get done. Some of them are awful - this batch is reserved for exceptionally bad writing but mostly for books that just get things wrong. I thought I’d go through and list some of the books I think are the best I’ve come across and some of the ones that you might want to give a pass.

Right now this is just a list - many of these books have much more in depth reviews on Amazon, I’ll be bringing that back here soon.

Perl

  • Perl Best Practice by Damian Conway (O’Reilly)

    In my opinion this is mandatory reading for every perl developer covering a huge variety of topics, even on things it covers that you don’t agree with (and there’ll be precious few of those, I suspect) it will make you rethink and reinforce your stance. This literally could be the best tech book I’ve ever read.

  • Perl Testing by Ian Langworth and chromatic (O’Reilly)

    This book was good - I think it’s really the only book I’ve seen covering the topic of systematic testing for Perl. It’s a short read and covers a good amount of ground - definitely worthy read for anyone doing serious development.

  • Programming Perlby Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen and Jon Orwant (O’Reilly)

    The classic, I’ve still got all three editions of these on my bookshelf starting with my worse for wear pink edition. Oh for those heady days of the pink ORA perl books.

Javascript

  • Professional Javascript for Web Developers by Nicholas C. Zakas (Wrox)

    This is an excellent reference and learning tool for all aspects of javascript development, including that new fangled AJAX stuff. It covers all the fundamentals in an easy to read, fairly reference friendly way. It is significantly better than other books I’ve read on the subject, even at the AJAX and css topics that other books have professed to focus on.

  • Pro JavaScript Techniques by John Resig (Apress)

    This is a book on advanced javascript - it’s really quite good. A definite read for anyone doing any significant javascript development. The author is also the developer of the JQuery framework, which is discussed but admirably not pushed in the text.

  • Ajax in Action by Dave Crane (Manning)

    A javascript book focussed on Ajax. This is an extremely well written and insightful book on the topic. Definitely pick this up if you’re doing a lot of Ajax work.