+1 with you on Wesley Chun. Great author and a great book!
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I was always happy with the O'Reilly
Learning (fill in the blank) books.
As far as I'm concerned O'Reilly does it better than anyone. I have a
ton of their stuff on various topics. (IMHO, their book
Active Directory provides the only decent coverage of the topic. Better even than Microsoft.)
Many professional coders got their start with an O'Reilly book. These are professional tools. Look at the reference shelf in almost any coder's workspace and you'll likely see a few well-used O'Reilly books sitting there.
The material is paced nicely - neither too fast nor too slow. I also like their style. They speak to you as though you're an adult with a brain in your head who actually intends to learn something. They don't coddle you. But they also don't lull you with four slow chapters and then take off and leave you in the dust after that.
If you methodically work your way through an O'Reilly title, you will always come away with a good understanding of the topic. I taught myself Python with
Learning Python and a few other titles in their Python series. And I use what I've learned in the book
Python for Unix and Linux System Administration nearly every day.
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I also highly recommend Frederick Brooks classic
The Mythical Man Month. This is THE book on software project management by the man who was central to the development of IBM's (at the time) radical System-360 operating system. It's at least 20 years old by now, but still incredibly relevant. I understand an Anniversary Edition is now out with a new Preface by Brooks himself.
This is one of the best computing books I ever read.