[Tutor] Recommended texts for self-study to master software engineering?

[Wayne Werner]

On Fri, 14 Dec 2012, boB Stepp wrote:

> This is obviously not a directly python-related question; however, I
> do believe that it would be of interest to many aspiring programmers
> who are diligently learning python on their own.
>
> So, through self-study, I would like to be able to acquire the
> knowledge I would need to become a competent designer and programmer,
> using good software engineering practices. Now I could go online and
> look at typical courses taken by those pursuing software engineering
> or computer science degrees and even come up with the textbooks that
> such courses use. But I would have no idea of how well-suited such
> textbooks would be for self-study. So my question is what would be a
> sequence of books to acquire the knowledge I would need that are
> especially well-suited to self-study? I may be asking for the
> unanswerable, but I am hoping to be pointed to some good texts for my
> future studies.

Rather than simple self-study, why not take advantage of the offerings by 
such folks as Coursera, Edx, or Kahn Academy?

They all have free courses in programming and software development that 
require a large degree of self-motivation (after all, you didn't pay 
anything for it so you don't have the same drive as regular college), but 
it has the added benefit of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other active 
participants who are also learning at the same time.

*Most* of the Python books that I've read are at least as well-suited to 
self study as any of the rest of them. Although, my own personal 
experience is that contributing to this list has done more to help me 
really understand the basics of Python and development than anything else.

HTH,
Wayne