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

[boB Stepp]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 6:48 AM, Wayne Werner <wayne at waynewerner.com> wrote:

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

I had briefly looked at Kahn Academy quite a while back, but it did
not seem (at that time) to have what I needed. I will re-investigate.
I had recently looked at the MIT and Stanford free offerings. I liked
the Stanford first course on Intro to C.Sc. and actually started to
work through it, until I went into analysis paralysis! Somehow at
work, which I am not hired to any programming whatsoever, I have
become ever more deeply involved in doing scripts to extend the
capabilities and usefulness of the software environment we do our work
in, which is wonderful providing the users its own scripting
language/environment which is further extendable with external scripts
(to the software) using Perl. I say Perl, as this was the only
language (beyond Solaris shell scripting) available on the system for
doing these things... I am getting off topic! (I did not want to use
C, C++ or Java to manipulate text files.) Anyway, I knew that when we
eventually upgraded our software and hardware that Python would then
become available and I thought that this would give me a better
grounding, starting off, in good programming practices than continuing
in Perl. So now I am trying learn Python as time becomes available.

Anyway, I will look into the suggestions above and see if I can pursue
a close to complete track in C.Sc./software engineering.

> *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.
>
I wholeheartedly agree with you here! I now have a collection of
Python books that I think will get me to where I want to be with
Python. Now I just have to find the time to work through them! And
this list teaches me every day even when I do not have any time at all
for study. Just reading the posts, which are never onerous in their
number each day, constantly teaches. The people on this list go above
and beyond in the level of effort they put into their answers to
questions.

Thanks!
boB