50 Must-read Books on Web Development

on Nov 5th 2008 with 123 comments

As web developers, it only makes sense that we find learning resources on our preferred medium, the Internet. However, there are definite pluses to the Old School method of learning; the print book. They’ve been through rigorous editing cycles, and you can trust solid publishers like O’Reilly. Also, you can trust the user ratings and comments that are on sites like Amazon. You can make an informed purchase with the help of these comments, and you don’t have to worry that these highly-rated titles are going to be accurate or poorly written. Publishing contracts are generally only given to industry and thought leaders who are worth listening to and learning from.

Here are 50 of the highest-rated, most respected print publications on many different web development topics.

Post thumbnail by Guillermo Esteves.

CSS

  • 1. CSS: The Missing Manual

    David McFarland’s CSS: The Missing Manual is over 500 pages of CSS expertise, with over 100 of those pages of tutorials. It’s a best place to get started for learning CSS.

  • 2. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

    If you’re looking for a guide with more advanced examples of CSS usage, CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards is an excellent read. The authors Andy Budd, Cameron Moll and Simon Collison are extremely well-respected web developers and designers.

  • 3. CSS: The Definitive Guide

    Part of the highly-respected O’Reilly line of books, CSS: The Definitive Guide is just what the title implies: a comprehensive resource of excellent tutorials and guidelines to use when programming with CSS.

  • Frameworks

    8. Agile Web Development with Rails

    Ever since Rails took the development world by storm a few years back, there has been plenty written about the Ruby framework. But you can’t find a much better resource than one written by Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson.

  • 9. Python Web Development with Django

    Django is an excellent python framework, and one that is highly respected in the development community. Python Web Development with Django is 400 pages of excellent techniques and tutorials for learning django development.

  • 10. Professional CodeIgniter

    CodeIgnitor is a PHP-based framework that has shown excellent promise amongst other frameworks. Professional CodeIgnitor gives an overview of MVC programming, and outlines how to build excellent web applications with CodeIgnitor.

  • 11. Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional

    Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional is a handy paperback for beginners trying to learn the MVC-based framework, but also, as the name implies, is highly useful for an intermediate or advanced CakePHP programmer. The book claims it’s geared for…

    …an audience of developers already familiar with PHP but who may not be PHP experts. This book is tailored for those new to CakePHP and who want a thorough tutorial.

  • PHP

  • 12. Programming PHP

    Programming PHP is an excellent book from O’Reilly that features writing from PHP’s creator himself, Rasmus Lerdorf. Lerdorf outlines some of the basics of PHP programming as well as topics like PHP and MySQL, XML and generating PDF’s. Perfect for the PHP beginner.

  • 13. PHP Cookbook

    Another stellar resource from O’Reilly, PHP Cookbook makes quick work of providing simple “recipies” of PHP that range from beginner to advanced. It’s an excellent reference to help you quickly find how to do a multitude of things in PHP. .NET writes that…

    This book is absolutely packed with quick solutions to common obstacles or ideas in PHP. The chapters on security are worth their weight in gold, as you’ll learn how to properly protect your site against unauthorised use.

  • 14. PHP and MySQL Web Development

    When it comes to developing web apps, PHP and MySQL go together like peanut butter and jelly for making dynamic websites. PHP and MySQL Web Development tries to help with many aspects of learning how to program with the two subjects.

  • 15. Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems

    The title alone should be reason enough to buy this PHP resource guide. You’ll learn how to do many things with PHP like: send and receive email notifications, track your visitors’ behavior with cookies and sessions, override PHP’s default settings, manipulate dates, images, and text on the fly, harness SOAP and other web services, create an online poll, ecard delivery system, and blog.

  • 16. PHP for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

    PHP for the World Wide Web is a very highly-rated book on learning the basics of PHP. In the 5th edition a section has been added on the new Zend engine, updated XML supported, and many more topics. 480 pages of classic PHP literature.

  • Python

    17. Learning Python

    Learning Python is in it’s 3rd edition, and for good reason. The book has become an excellent resource because of it’s excellent step-by-step approach of the fundamentals of the Python language. The systematic approach to learning is ideal for programmers wanting to get to know the language better, as well as experts needing a handy reference.

  • 18. Python Essential Reference

    Along with Learning Python, Python Essential Reference lives up to it’s name. 230 of the 648 pages are strictly technical appendices, and the book crams thousands of online information into a handy little paperback book.

  • 19. Expert Python Programming

    Expert Python Programming is a brand-new reference released only last September. While it may not be as old or established as some other books, the book is geared towards Python developers who are wanting to optimize their programming and perfect their development techniques.

  • Ruby

    20. The Ruby Programming Language

    The Ruby Programming Language is one of the only books on the list to receive a perfect 5/5 stars from Amazon. The O’Reilly resource on Ruby is an excellent guide for those wanting to learn the language from the bottom-up. The text is centered largely around theory and thoroughly explains the API and syntax around the language.

  • 21. Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional

    Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional explains a little bit about everything surrounding the language. It gives a tutorial on the principles behind object-oriented programming, explains key aspects of Ruby like database access, and eventually gives an overview of Ruby on Rails.

  • 22. Ruby Cookbook

    The Ruby Cookbook is exactly what the title implies: a problem solving guide to developing in the Ruby language. It gives hundreds of real-world solutions, complete with thousands of lines of code to reuse in your own projects.

  • Linux

    23. A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming

    This book is an indispensable resource for the Linux user. It’s a whopping 1,008 pages, so it’s the size of at least two books on the subject of Linux. It is incredibly in-depth, and best of all the examples used in the book can be used for years to come, as the book is 100 percent distribution and release agnostic.

  • 24. Linux Pocket Guide

    If you’re looking for something a little smaller, the Linux Pocket Guide this tiny book of only 224 pages packs a wallop in terms of only including the best information and avoiding bloat within the book. It’s all killer, with no filler.

  • 25. Linux Bible, 2008 Edition: Boot up to Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, openSUSE, and 11 Other Distributions

    There are tons of different “flavors” of Linux, and this book explains everything a new or migrating user might need to know before making the jump and picking a distribution of Linux. This book will help the beginner pick which distribution is best for them, and shows real-world accounts on how people are using Linux.

  • 26. Linux in a Nutshell

    Ellen Siever has an excellent book explaining Linux in a Nutshell to the Linux beginner. The book outlines the aspects of administering and making effective use of Linux systems.

  • Database Management

    27. Pro Oracle Application Express

    Pro Oracle Application Express, or “APEX” is an incredibly useful and innovative application development framework for creating database-backed applications. This book allows you to get under the hood and get your hands dirty with the APEX and all of the advanced functionality it can bring to your next application.

  • 28. High Performance MySQL

    High Performance MySQL is yet another stellar book from O’Reilly. The book is co-written by ex-Yahoo! empoloyee Jeremy Zawodny. With a popular site like Yahoo!, one of the crucial elements of their backend is making sure the performance of the site remains high. MySQL is notorious for not having well-documented literature on the issues of reliability, scalability and performance. This book teaches many strategies and techniques that allow your MySQL-powered application to perform much smoother.

  • 29. MySQL Crash Course (Sams Teach Yourself in 10 Minutes)

    MySQL Crash Course is a quick and handy guide for the MySQL newbie. Learn how to be immediately productive in MySQL programming with 30 hands-on lessons.

  • 30. PostgreSQL

    PostgreSQL is a comprehensive tutorial spanning 1,000+ pages. The book covers the basics of PostgreSQL programming and theory, and shows features that build upon each other. It’s coined as the “definitive guide” to PostgreSQL programming.

 
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Glen Stansberry is a web developer and blogger. You can read more tips on web development at his blog Web Jackalope or follow him on Twitter.  

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Newer Comments →
  • http://www.cre8tivecontrol.com Ryan Hickman

    Good list, id say maybe some more on joomla though…. Joomla is very slept on.

  • http://aruncsharma.com Arun Chintalapati

    Wow ! Super exhaustive list . Thanks!

  • http://www.ariyoshahry.net Ariyo

    Thanks for listing these books. Definitely useful for web nerds like me.

  • http://www.kabarmadura.com kabarmadura

    great reference …. thanks brother

  • http://www.alexcoleman.net Alex Coleman

    Perfect timing…Need some books for work.

  • http://www.shauncrittenden.com Shaun

    Whoa list.

  • http://www.designshard.com Max

    Cool list, on the topic of books any one know an up to date, recent SEO book thats any good?

  • http://breefield.com Dustin Hoffman

    By the time you read all these, they’ll all be well outdated.

  • http://www.allwebdesignresources.com/webdesignblogs/ Rachel

    Woa…I don’t have any of these except for the MySQL one….I need to catchup. Great list!!

  • Brian McCarrie

    BAM! Nice list.

  • http://www.broadcastingadam.com Adam

    Nice list. Gotta check some of these out. I’m reading Agile Rails Development right now. It’s not too bad.

  • http://www.jhaygamba.com Jhay

    Bookmarked. Thanks!

  • http://www.eirestudio.net/ Keith

    Don’t mean to be rude here, just thinking out loud – But why are these tuts sites acting like smashing magazine (huge lists, free stuff)? I honestly think nettuts is in top form when pushing great content, which it does, but these type of articles are just kinda boring in my opinion.

    • Thomas

      +1

      Substituting quality, unique articles for lists of resources is a great way to land yourself some unsubscribers.

      It’s almost insulting to think that *tuts writers believe us developers can’t use Google.

      • Reggie

        Wow you guys are so kool. Probably so kool that you never had to wallow around in noviceland, learning from books rather than always riding the cutting edge the way you two do. damn, keep us posted on the view from that vanguard of yours. it sure is nice to get a glimmer now and then.

  • http://blog.insicdesigns.com insic

    nice list! very helpful. im thinking of getting one of them.

  • http://www.99designz.com Dinu

    Great collection…Thanks

  • http://jojhnsbeharry.com Johns Beharry

    Oh this is great thanks I have my eyes on a few their that I’d be ordering asap (design, css, jquery, wordpress).

  • http://URL(Optional) mike

    I have to say I am very happy to see Larry Ullman’s PHP For the World Wide Web on the list. Over the past month or so I have started teaching myself PHP and this book has been extremely helpful for me as a beginner. His style of writing makes it easy to follow and understand.

    Great list of books, definitely saw a few I am interested in checking out.

  • Sasha

    It’s Code Igniter not CodeIgnitor.

  • http://www.freshclickmedia.com Shane

    What – no ASP.NET stuff? :)

    I must say that the first book, “CSS : The missing manual”, is a favourite of mine, and I’m surprised by the “Professional Code Igniter” book – didn’t know that was around, so thanks for pointing that one out.

    Also, “WordPress Theme Design” is new to me too.

    Thanks for the list.

  • http://twitter.com/phluxor Robert

    Nice reference here. Bookmarked and tweeted!

    Now, it would be nice to add some books on SEO to this list like SEO Bible! SEO is another very important aspect of web development and every web dev worth her or his salt will know how to optimize a site for SEO.

  • http://eneza.wordpress.com Eneza

    Still another milestone of GOOD READS!!! THANKS for the list!!!

  • http://blogbangbang.com jblanche

    Great list, but it lacks THE Ruby reference, the pickaxe book :
    http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ruby/programming-ruby

  • http://barttos.net/ Barttos

    Very nice list. I already bought 6 of them. :-)

  • http://www.darrenmcpherson.co.uk Gafroninja

    adding to amazon wishlist.

    Great Post

  • http://www.danhbaweb20.com Danh ba web 2.0

    Thanks you very much. Great list !

  • http://james.padolsey.com James

    Whoa! A lot of books, I think it would take me at least a year to properly get through all of these, and that’s if I was spending 100% of my time on reading. But, hey, since they’re all “must-read” I better get started. ;)

    Ok, ok, I know some people prefer learning from books but for me, I find learning by bulk doesn’t really work. I prefer building something and then when I reach to a hurdle (or a wall) I simply google my problems away. Some of you might say that readings books is good because you’ll learn the language/technology from the bottom up, but as we all know there are lots of other ways to learn, some of them might be more effective than the book-reading bottom-up approach…

    One thing:

    Simply Javascript is a book by SitePoint, and it gives plenty of examples and real-world tutorials on how to use javascript to solve problems that plague modern web layouts.

    JavaScript is not meant to be used to solve web layout issues, it’s sole purpose is to enhance the user’s experience. The only time it’s okay for your website to be dependent on JavaScript is if you’re developing a super-interactive app like an Ajax messaging client or something like Google Mail (but even that has a non JS version).

  • http://james.padolsey.com James

    Oh, and, thanks for the list Glen, I think you’re becoming the master of Nettuts lists… :)

  • http://www.cyberthinkinfotech.com/webdevelopment.php Webmaster | Web Development

    Hi,
    Amazing activities
    Great !!!!!!!
    I have read this Blog and you have shared good information about Books on Web Development…
    Nice Post!!!!!!!
    Thanks.

  • http://URL(Optional) Eddie

    nice list.. by the time I get through all these all I have to start again with the latest tech :D

  • http://davidebocci.net Davide
  • http://laminbarrow.com Lamin

    It’s not fair. How come you have books on PHP, Ruby and Python but not a single one on ASP.net?

    • http://www.jstnjns.com/ Justin

      Because ASP.NET blows. Sry.

      • fred

        ASP.NET; ASP.NET MVC are 2 web dev solutions that should considered to any webdeveloper or webdesigner. dumb

  • http://www.nanucreative.com Mindy

    Great list! I’m going to put some of these on my holiday wish list. I’d love to see “50 Must-read Books on Web Design” over at PSDTuts! Some for guidance, some for inspiration? ;)

  • http://www.islandzilla.com ashvin

    too much of them.. where do u guys find time to read all these?

    or maybe thats just me!
    i prefer reading tuts on blogs like nettuts… quicker, smarter and uptodate!

  • http://www.qbessi.com qbessi

    I recommand Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: in C# and VB.

  • http://www.ben-griffiths.com Ben Griffiths

    The High Performance MySQL book is brilliant – solved so many configuration issues with it! Very highly recommended.

  • http://worldmedtourism.blogspot.com/ sayan

    This is most wonderful article and more and more book.

  • Pingback: Useful Links (06/11/2008) | Apramana

  • http://madebyabe.com Abe

    Nice list, just put some on my Amazon wishlist…Thanks!

  • Rui Silva

    Some good books, but i think something is missing in frameworks part:

    “The Definitive Guide to symfony”

    http://www.symfony-project.org/book/1_1/

  • leo

    I think this list is great, net tut’s provides some really great articles and it’s nice have something tangible like a book infront of you aswell so thanks for putting the list together I’m defiantly going to pick up some of these books.

  • Bogdan

    Codeignitor? ;)

  • http://URL(Optional) Dan

    Hell yea to the NIN desktop picture in the screen shot!

  • http://www.hipervinculo.net Raul Riera

    Where is Adobe Flex, Flash and AIR? :P

  • http://devjargon.com Alex

    Good list, but what about books on proper coding in general? A couple of good books that are easy for most to get into are Head First Design Patterns and Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (both from O’Reilly).

    These books work at teaching common principles in easy to learn ways. Great for any beginner/intermediate developer, and most advanced developers can probably glean something useful from them as well.

  • Lubes

    Lovely!

    I would add to the CSS section “Head First HTML With CSS & XHTML” by Elizabeth and Eric Freeman which I think remains the best book for complete beginners. Also, “Beginning CSS Web Development From novice to Professional” by Simon Collison.

    For the more intermediate to advanced: Andy Clarke’s “CSS Artistry” (book+DVD) combo, and “W3C Creativity” which includes awesome techniques from some of the top designers. These two pushed my knowledge and skill way beyond.

    Apress.com offers a daily $10 ebook download, so it’s worth going there daily to see what the current offering is.

  • http://matt-radel.com Matt Radel

    Great list, but Zeldman doesn’t make the cut? I’d also toss Getting Real and Defensive Design for the Web up there. But maybe those are just gimmies…..

  • http://www.jealousrepublic.com/ Brian Bartholomew

    I can back this post 100%, i have most of these books and they are all great! Anyone in doubt pick some of these titles up and you will find yourself a happy person.

  • http://codeblog.studiokoi.com Greg Ferrell

    This is a pretty good list, but I must disagree with #12. Even though the creator of the first edition of PHP, Rasmus Lerdof, helped write this book, it is not very good. It goes in a bad order for someone who is just learning the language, and there are many inexcusable errors in the code examples, as well as unexplained usages of language idioms and built in functions. These are still present even in the updated 2006 version.

    The only reason I was able to learn something from this book is because I already knew enough about PHP to recognize what was wrong.

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  • http://www.seansteezy.com sean steezy

    totally stoked. I got #2 & #14 like 2 months ago. I must say, CSS mastery is super helpful for those of us who didn’t go to school for thi, it explains everything you need to know to start making bangin’ websites.

    thanks for the list, the iPhone one is a goldmine….

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