This site contains a list of resources I found helpful. I am not an expert in all of these topics, but all the resources listed here impacted me. I read some of the books quite a long time ago, so there might be newer editions out there already, and I might need to refresh some of the knowledge.
The list may not be exhaustive, but I will be adding more in the future. I firmly believe that educating yourself further is one of the most important things to advance. The lists are in random order and reshuffled every time (via *sort -R*) when updates are made.
You won't find any links on this site because, over time, the links will break. Please use your favourite search engine when you are interested in one of the resources...
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Technical books
Site Reliability Engineering; How Google runs production systems; O'Reilly
Concurrency in Go; Katherine Cox-Buday; O'Reilly
Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good; Fred Herbert; No Starch Press
21st Century C: C Tips from the New School; Ben Klemens; O'Reilly
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide; Not an actual book, but could be
Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!; Miran Lipovaca; No Starch Press
Java ist auch eine Insel; Christian Ullenboom;
Data Science at the Command Line; Jeroen Janssens; O'Reilly
The Practise of System and Network Administration; Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christina J. Hogan, Strata R. Chalup; Addison-Wesley Professional
Clusterbau mit Linux-HA; Michael Schwartzkopff; O'Reilly
Funktionale Programmierung; Peter Pepper; Springer
Systemprogrammierung in Go; Frank Müller; dpunkt
Programming Perl aka "The Camel Book"; Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall & Jon Orwant; O'Reilly
Pro Git; Scott Chacon, Ben Straub; Apress
DNS and BIND; Cricket Liu; O'Reilly
Effective awk programming; Arnold Robbins; O'Reilly
The Docker Book; James Turnbull; Kindle
C++ Programming Language; Bjarne Stroustrup;
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms; Andrew S. Tanenbaum; Pearson
Pro Puppet; James Turnbull, Jeffrey McCune; Apress
Object-Oriented Programming with ANSI-C; Axel-Tobias Schreiner
Modern Perl; Chromatic ; Onyx Neon Press
Developing Games in Java; David Brackeen and others...; New Riders
Higher Order Perl; Mark Dominus; Morgan Kaufmann
Systems Performance Tuning; Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci and others...; O'Reilly
Think Raku (aka Think Perl 6); Laurent Rosenfeld, Allen B. Downey; O'Reilly
The Go Programming Language; Alan A. A. Donovan; Addison-Wesley Professional
Technical bibles
I didn't read them from the beginning to the end, but I am using them to look up things.
The Linux Programming Interface; Michael Kerrisk; No Starch Press
Understanding the Linux Kernel; Daniel P. Bovet, Marco Cesati; O'Reilly
Algorithms; Robert Sedgewick, Kevin Wayne; Addison Wesley
Self-development and soft-skills books
The Off Switch; Mark Cropley; Virgin Books
The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide; John Sonmez; Unabridged Audiobook
Soft Skills; John Sommez; Manning Publications
Time Management for System Administrators; Thomas A. Limoncelli; O'Reilly
Stop starting, start finishing; Arne Roock; Lean-Kanban University
Psycho-Cybernetics; Maxwell Maltz; Perigee Books
Ultralearning; Scott Young; Thorsons
Eat That Frog!; Brian Tracy; Hodder Paperbacks
Deep Work; Cal Newport; Piatkus
The Daily Stoic; Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman; Profile Books
The Obstacle Is The Way; Ryan Holiday; Profile Books Ltd
So Good They Can't Ignore You; Cal Newport; Business Plus
The Bullet Journal Method; Ryder Carroll; Fourth Estate
The Power of Now; Eckhard Tolle; Yellow Kite
The Joy of Missing Out; Christina Crook; New Society Publishers
Atomic Habits; James Clear; Random House Business
Who Moved My Cheese?; Dr. Spencer Johnson; Vermilion
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People; Stephen R. Covey; Simon & Schuster UK
Digital Minimalism; Cal Newport; Portofolio Penguin
Technical video lectures and courses
Some of these were in-person with exams; others were online learning lectures only.
Linux Security and Isolation APIs Training; Michael Kerrisk; 3-day on-site training
MySQL Deep Dive Workshop; 2-day on-site training
Protocol buffers; O'Reilly Online
Algorithms Video Lectures; Robert Sedgewick; O'Reilly Online
Red Hat Certified System Administrator; Course + certification (Although I had the option, I decided not to take the next course as it is more effective to self learn what I need)
Scripting Vim; Damian Conway; O'Reilly Online
The Ultimate Kubernetes Bootcamp; School of Devops; O'Reilly Online
Ultimate Go Programming; Bill Kennedy; O'Reilly Online
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs; Harold Abelson and more...;
F5 Loadbalancers Training; 2-day on-site training; F5, Inc.
Apache Tomcat Best Practises; 3-day on-site training
Functional programming lecture; Remote University of Hagen
Fiction and more books
Many fiction and non-fiction books I read are not listed here. This site primarily includes resources that impacted me regarding my work and not on my personal life. Do you recommend a good Science Fiction Novel? E-Mail me; I can also provide my recommendations! :-)
Formal education
I have met many self-taught IT professionals I highly respect. In my own opinion, a formal degree does not automatically qualify a person for a particular job. It is more about how you educate yourself further *after* formal education. The pragmatic way of thinking and getting things done do not require a college or university degree.
However, I still believe a degree in Computer Science helps to understand all the theories involved that you would have never learned otherwise. Isn't it cool to understand how compilers work under the hood (automata theory) even if you are not required to hack the compiler in your current position? You could apply the same theory for other things too. This was just *one* example.
One year Student exchange program in OH, USA
German School Majors (Abitur), focus areas: German and Mathematics
Half-year internship as a C/C++ programmer in Sofia, Bulgaria
Graduated from University as Diplom-Inform. (FH) at the Aachen University of Applied Sciences, Germany
My diploma thesis, "Object-oriented development of a GUI based tool for event-based simulation of distributed systems," can be found at:
I was one of the last students handed out an "old fashioned" German Diploma degree before the University switched to the international Bachelor and Master versions. To give you an idea: The "Diplom-Inform. (FH)" means translated "Diploma in Informatics from a University of Applied Sciences (FH: Fachhochschule)". Going after the international student credit score, it settles between a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Master of Computer Science degree.
Colleges and Universities are costly in many countries. Come to Germany, the first college degree is for free (if you finish within a certain deadline!)