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How many technical books do you read per year?

by cenny on 7/22/22, 7:43 AM with 41 comments

• by lmarcos on 7/22/22, 8:24 PM

  I'm probably an outlier. I read around 15 technical books per year. I read them because I enjoy their content: beautiful books like SICP, TAOCP, Stevens' books, etc.; I can recommend them to anyone. There are plenty of tech books out there that are awfully boring though (I don't read those). Funny enough, people usually say that books like the former (the beautiful ones, the timeless ones) don't help you on your current job... Well, I couldn't care less. I don't read sci-fi to gather knowledge either. I read for fun, and this applies to tech books as well.

  (I believe that timeless tech books do help you, though. They help you with your career, not with your (current) job).

• by OnionBlender on 7/22/22, 4:24 PM

  I don't get hung up on numbers or whether I actually "finish" the book.

  It is a lot easier to read a book like The Pragmatic Programmer cover-to-cover than it is to read a book about a specific language or API. I've been trying to learn Rust and I find that if I don't practice or do exercises then I don't end up remembering what I read. I read nearly all of "Programming Rust" but now I'm having to go back and read many sections because I wasn't writing the code as I was reading the chapters.

  As for "finishing" books, I rarely truly finish a book. I've been reading graphics and game engine books but I don't feel pressure to read every chapter. Did I really "finish" a book if I skipped chapters? Who cares. Every graphics/game book seems to start with chapters about linear algebra so I skip those. Collision detection? If I need to find the intersection between a line and a cone then I'll look it up.

  I also find it helpful to read a chapter from multiple books about the same topic (thanks to o'reilly books online). Like when I was learning C++11 I read the futures/promises chapter from 4 or 5 different books. I found having the same thing explained by different authors was more helpful than just re-reading a chapter. I also had a learning disability as a kid so maybe that's why I need to re-read things so much.

• by codingdave on 7/22/22, 2:45 PM

  Zero.

  I totally appreciate the value in it, but I'm old and just have a hard time making personal growth in my job skills a priority over time with family. I read more before I had children, and I would read if I was could spend some work hours on it.

  I've also seen people who read too much - all their work philosophy and decisions are not based on experience, but on a book they read. I feel the flow should be to: read -> synthesize new info with experience -> test out some changes to your way of working -> decide whether or not it works. But I've seen too much of: read -> declare sweeping changes to the entire team -> read another book.

• by JHonaker on 7/22/22, 1:32 PM

  I read a lot. I basically always have at least one fiction book and one technical book (usually math, statistics, or programming) that I'm reading at any given time.

  I think I'm an outlier on the other end. This year I've read 3 or 4 books on programming language theory, one specifically about Scheme, and The Rust Book. I've picked up and read a a little bit to a lot from a lot of math textbooks.

  This is all probably stems from graduate school training and my ADHD... It also helps to have PDFs or online versions and a baby that had some serious aversion to sleep, so the only thing you can do is sit in the dark rocking her and read...

• by philomath_mn on 7/22/22, 3:39 PM

  Reading is my only hobby right now (I'm able to fit it in around kids) so I aim for 3-4 books a month. Most of what I read is non-fiction, but technical books take a long time to finish so I'd say I finish ~10 technical books a year.

  I won't say I remember everything I read, but I highly recommend reading as much as possible. My career has been on an upswing the past few years and I have to think reading more has been a contributing factor.

  Reading has been particularly helpful at my current job where I don't have any mentors or more senior people to learn from, books have helped fill at least some of that gap.

  Context: I am a software engineer / architect with 8 years full time dev experience.

• by shaftoe444 on 7/22/22, 9:04 AM

  I have been "reading" Crafting Interpreters for about a year, and implementing variations on what it is teaching. I always try to have one on the go for 10% time or whenever I'm out of original ideas. Got SICP but expect that to take another 3 years at this rate.

• by Barrin92 on 7/22/22, 9:06 AM

  one, maybe two? One technical book a month sounds like way too much provided you actually aim to work through the book thoroughly. I recently made my way through SICP because I never finished it when I was studying and that took me like half a year during my free time.

• by tedyoung on 7/22/22, 6:21 PM

  I think it's more important to ask: how much have you _learned_ from reading technical books?

  There's also different reasons for reading technical books: getting answers to current problems (though most people would just search the web); going deeper on a specific topic that you're already familiar with; tackling a new area; etc.

  While I read a lot of pieces of books, I find reading in a group (book club[0]) to be the best way to really understand what's read (as well as providing a bit of discipline and structure to make sure I really read it and don't just skim/skip).

  [0] This is why I run a weekly book club as part of my Discord community (https://ted.dev/discord), so I know I'll deeply read at least a few books every year.

• by mister_goo on 7/22/22, 7:47 AM

  Zero. I guess I'm an outliner.

• by hourago on 7/22/22, 9:11 AM

  It depends on what I need. If the company gets into some new technology then I read a couple of books on the topic. I try to get generalist books instead of framework x.yy books.

  So, it can be 4-8 books or none depending on the year.

• by 1sembiyan on 7/22/22, 12:14 PM

  Around 3 these past few years. Reading is not enough though.

• by panda888888 on 7/22/22, 6:07 PM

  As a data point, I've purchased (or borrowed from the library) 9 technical books this year. I've read bits and pieces of all of them, but I haven't read them cover-to-cover.

  By then end of the year, I'll probably be up to 12-15 total, but not reading everything.

  Edit: I probably read about 1/4 to 1/3 of each book (although this varies widely), so that puts me at ~4 full books.

• by eddof13 on 7/22/22, 4:42 PM

  I've read about 1-2 per month so far this year, but I'm burnt out now and I plan on hopefully not reading any more technical books this year. Also I find I don't really remember much from them, but I don't take notes etc, I am more of the 'something will rub off on you' persuasion when I read books.

• by robert2020 on 7/22/22, 9:51 AM

  I buy about ten per year. Read?

• by dyingkneepad on 7/22/22, 9:34 PM

  I read 0, but I buy > 0 every year. One day I'll finish them. Also, one day I'll start them.

• by dev_0 on 7/24/22, 7:18 AM

  I think how you take notes is important than now many books you read

• by kojeovo on 7/23/22, 1:33 AM

  0, my job isn't my life. And they don't pay me to read books.