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CAD Engineers' Bookshelf Updated

Four years ago, I presented my original CAD Engineers' Bookshelf. I've put together an updated list here of the subset of books that I refer to most often. Since some titles have been updated, latest editions are listed here.

Another update since 2007 is that alternative formats are widely available for these books. You can go directly to the source at O'Reilly Media and purchase Ebooks formatted for all the popular e-readers. It's very convenient to be able to download formats that look great on your Computer, Kindle, or iPad.

Without further ado, here's the 2011 version of the bookshelf. It's all Perl, which is testimony to both Perl's power and it's inscrutability!

Books About EDA

I'm intrigued by EDAgraffiti, a new book on our industry and plan to buy a copy. See this good review by Clive Maxfield.

Before that, the only other book I had seen on EDA was about the start of the ASIC industry, Silicon Destiny: The Story of Application Specific Integrated Circuits and Lsi Logic Corporation, which is pretty hard to find.

LSI Logic's 30th reunion!

Who's who at LSI Logic's 30th reunion gives a great synopsis of the pioneering company in the ASIC/EDA industry. To read the whole story, track down a copy of Silicon Destiny: The Story of Application Specific Integrated Circuits and Lsi Logic Corporation, by Rob Walker, one of the founders of LSI Logic. (I have an autographed edition!)

Find Your Parachute's Color on a Library Vacation

I've recommended Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter web site before for its unorthodox, yet sensible, advice to finding the best job for you. I'd recommend that you sign up for his newsletter on the web site if you like what you see. This week, he describes taking a Library Vacation(tm) for someone contemplating a career (not just job) change. It's an exciting idea!

I've seen a few friends leaving the high-tech industry, and their transition plans sometimes could use more rigor. It seems like everyone wants to get into a "green" or "alternative energy" job! I'm sure that will be big eventually, but it's better to expand your search space, and carefully consider what you would be passionate doing.

How To Be World Class

Amidst the constant news of the struggling macroeconomy and generally bleak news in EDA and related industries, it'd be a good idea to focus on doing something positive.

How To Be World Class is a brief review of the talked-about book Outliers, which I hope you'll find inspirational.

10 Great Tech Books

There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more.

Morrissey, The Smiths

I love books and "top 10" or "must read" lists, so IEEE Spectrum: 10 Great Tech Books is irresistable.

Which are your favorites?
Which ones were missed?

I've only read two of them: The Design of Everyday Things and The Soul Of A New Machine. The latter one in particular I found enthralling and ample motivation for my college computer architecture design project! Nowadays it must seem like a history book, since it concerns designing DEC-compatible minicomputers. But the thrill of design and hunting down and quashing elusive bugs is timeless.

Blessed Perl

I just spent three days in great Advanced Perl Programming class taught by the Anderson Software Group. This was the best class I've taken in a long time. One of the most satisfying things to do at work is to develop a well-crafted program (usually in Perl) and see it working smoothly to automate my own or someone else's work. The class exposed me to things I'd always wanted to know about Perl, including Object-Oriented Perl, GUI building, and interfacing to databases, networks and C programs. Great stuff!

We worked from Anderson's class notes, but the reference text for the course is Advanced Perl Programming from O'Reilly. See my other favorite programming books on the CAD Engineer's Bookshelf.

I'm hearing rumblings that Python is a "better Perl", designed from scratch for object-oriented programming. I guess it lacks that Perl syntax that can make a program look like hieroglyphics? This sounds like the next language to learn.

CAD Engineer's Bookshelf

Inspired by the DFT Bookcase over at the DFT Digest blog, I decided to create pointers to the technical books I use every day in my work. (Yes, I looked the ones strewn about my desk and next to the computer, rather than those arranged neatly (and less used) on my bookshelf. Perhaps you'll discover a title or two that will help you.

	Great book for learning Perl -- it's how I learned, going through it from cover to cover. And I still use it for a basic reference.
	A surprisingly useful book. I can't count the number of times that I needed to solve some puzzle in Perl, and found it already grokked in this book.
	Lots of good ideas here. When you are going to pick a coding style, why not follow what they've already figured out?
	My newest addition. I'm enjoying working through it to learn about references, packages, and object-oriented Perl.
	Programming Perl is the "bible", though personally it's not my favorite. And I find Larry Wall's humour distracting.
	My go-to book for Tcl.
	Because, sometimes, a good ol' shell script is enough.