Best Books for IT Beginners and Professionals
IT books reveal how computers handle data and information. Data handling includes creation, processing, storing, and retrieving. It has helped businesses reduce costs and streamline processes. It has helped e-commerce, medicine, marketing tactics, and global employment, including outsourcing. As AI has become an integral part of the workflow of all businesses today, the users of today need to be aware of the privileges it offers and the threats it poses.
We have highlighted top IT books to help new readers understand the basics, what IT is all about, how IT works, and its risks and benefits. These are essential reads as they address today’s needs, opportunities, and concerns about IT. These reads give an opportunity to knowledge and a guide for those wanting to make strides in their career.
Below is a list of IT books for professionals and beginners to excel in their understanding of IT.
|
# |
IT Books | Author | Published |
Rating |
| 1 | Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies | Nick Bostrom | 2016 | Amazon: 4.5
Goodreads 3.87 |
| 2 | The Industries of the Future | Alec Ross | 2016 | Amazon 4.4
Goodreads 3.98 |
| 3 | The Soul of a New Machine | Tracy Kidder | 1981 | Amazon 4.6
Goodreads 4.12 |
| 4 | Cybersecurity ??? Attack and Defense Strategies: Infrastructure security with Red Team and Blue Team tactics | Yuri Diogenes, Dr. Erdal Ozkaya | 2018 | Amazon 4.5
Goodreads 4.10 |
| 5 | Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age | Brad Smith, Carol Ann Browne | 2019 | Amazon 4.5
Goodreads 3.89 |
| 6 | Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software | Charles Petzold | 2000 | Amazon 4.6
Goodreads 4.39 |
| 7 | The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master | Andrew Hunt and David Thomas | 1999 | Amazon 4.6
Goodreads 4.33 |
| 8 | Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations | Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim | 2018 | Amazon 4.5
Goodreads 4.08 |
| 9 | Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs | Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman | 1996 | Amazon 4.7
Goodreads 4.47 |
| 10 | The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win | Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford | 2013 | Amazon 4.7
Goodreads 4.27 |
Let us go through the reviews of IT Books one by one.
Book #1 Superintelligence – Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Author: Nick Bostrom
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Review:
A book written with a complete scientific approach targets new readers and undergraduates to understand the concept of AI in detail. It is one of the best IT Books you have to read, Bill Gates and Elon Musk suggested the book as a worthy read. It addresses crucial questions like whether the AI will serve humanity or rule like a dictator. Nick Bostrom has presented the implications of the development of AI, its use and misuse, and how to deal with it.
Key Points:
- The author answers futuristic questions about machines, AI, and general intelligence.
- Bostrom addresses concerns like whether machines surpass humans in general intelligence.
- The book helps the reader to understand the concept of human intelligence vs. superintelligence, pros and cons, and the ways to deal with it.
- The writer also suggests positive ways of using superintelligence.
Book #2 The Industries of the Future
Author: Alec Ross
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Review:
The writer Alec Ross walk-throughs the trends and practices in the information technology industry. Having worked as the Senior Advisor of Innovation to the Secretary of State, Ross brings in his invaluable expertise about futuristic changes in robotics, AI, and genomics. This book is relevant to anyone wanting to know more about information technology or IT professionals.
Key Points:
- The book explains the impact of the internet on business and the global community.
- The author helps to understand the impact of digital technology. He explains how cybercrime, AI, and economic analysis affect global trends.
- He addresses the impact of technology on human lives- nations, professionals, and cyber warfare.
- The author helps parents understand the inclusion of IT and raise children for a futuristic society.
Book #3 The Soul of a New Machine
Author: Tracy Kidder
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Review:
The author talks about the computer revolution changing professional and personal lives. He ponders the idea of getting work done and how it has changed tremendously. It has influenced the concept of time, as today, people spend evenings and weekends meeting deadlines. The book offers a simplified manner of understanding the complex concepts of computer manufacturing. It is a book for beginners with little knowledge about IT software and IT industry professionals.
Key Points:
- The Soul of a New Machine offers detailed storytelling about struggling IT professionals working in 24-hour marathon work sessions.
- The book unfolds the history of the American hi-tech industry.
- Kidder has done a great job of giving a thorough simplistic insight into the specifications of the 4.5 GHz 32-bit minicomputer.
- The author writes about computer companies becoming massive and mind-blowing technological innovations.
Book #4 Cybersecurity ??? Attack and Defense Strategies: Infrastructure security with Red Team and Blue Team tactics
Authors: Yuri Diogenes, Dr. Erdal Ozkaya
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Review:
The reader gains knowledge of working and tools on Linux and Windows. IT learners, professionals, ethical hackers, and consultants find the applicable methods of Red Team tactics using PowerShell and Python enthralling. It gives an insight into the vulnerability of a computer system and exploits possibilities. It also goes into depth with the Blue Team’s defense tactics to improve system security.
Key Points:
- Readers will learn the significance of maintaining their computer system with a solid security posture.
- The author talks about Red Team and Blue Team’s Strategies for computer system security.
- The book teaches how to recover from an attack on a compromised system, manage vulnerability, and perform log analysis for threatening activities.
- It also teaches how to secure the network, employ active sensors, and leverage threat intelligence.
Book #5 Tools And Weapons: Promise And Peril In The Digital Age
Authors: Brad Smith
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Review:
The author has expeditiously presented the hardships and the success story of Microsoft as a company. The potential of the tech industries to grow even bigger and their futuristic impact has been well worded. It includes a foreword by Bill Gates. The book is suitable for IT professionals and beginners looking for success stories.
Key Points:
- Brad Smith reflects on his futuristic perspective on computer companies being the President of Microsoft.
- Smith writes on the balance and risk that can exist with digitization in the current and future times.
- The book further discusses security issues like- privacy, cybercrime, social media, and many more.
Book #6 Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Author: Charles Petzold
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Review:
The author puts people from different professional backgrounds and knowledge on the same code platform. Petzold applies familiar objects and communicating systems to compile a story and reveal the secret life of a computer. It helps beginners understand computers, Smart machines, and the internet. The author lays out the fundamental principles of computer science to the reader with explanations.
Key Points:
- The book makes it easier for readers from other disciplines to understand what goes on inside a computer.
- The reader learns the know-how to use and invent new communicating languages with coding as the fundamental foundation.
- The author unfolds the secrets behind the inner details of computers and Smart machines.
Book #7 The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Author: Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
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Review:
The authors have explained the challenging concepts of programming in a simplified manner. Hunt and Thomas walk us through as a programmer from basic programming to precise development with automation. The Pragmatic Programmer is suitable for all IT professionals and beginners. Readers will find valuable lessons and bits of advice for software professionals.
Key Points:
- The authors provide a platform to learn new and unique methods of working in programming and display learned skills more wisely in their work.
- Pragmatic Programmer enables the IT enthusiast to be original and not fall into the trap of duplicity and delight the users.
- The authors show how to safeguard your code with assertions, contracts, and exceptions.
- The reader gets to test efficiently and automate with efficient programs.
BOOK # 8 Accelerate – Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Author: Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
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Review:
The author has put together the best practices in the book for IT business leaders and management. IT professionals will learn how to measure their team performance and enhance output. The book throws light on cultural interrelation with software engineering. It showcases the journey and evolution of DevOps and DevOps professionals.
Key Points:
- The reader gets to understand the strategies and rigorous statistical methods to speed up the IT organization toward success.
- The book helps the reader to get hold of the science required for the research and apply it to any organization.
- The book helps management to introduce the required skills for better team performance.
BOOK # 9 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Author: Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman
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Review:
The book offers the best introductions to chief programming systems and CS. The MIIT professors have done a great job of relaying programming information simplistically. The book also includes the complexity of interpreters and compilers in depth in a simplified manner. Moreover, the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs would interest IT professionals.
Key Points:
- The reader understands the chief programming systems, compilers, and interpreters through this book.
- The book exhibits various approaches to dealing with time. It includes computational models, objects with states, concurrent programming, and many more.
- The book offers example sections and exercises. It covers numerical programming, stream processing, and optimal graphics procedures.
BOOK # 10 The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
Authors: Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
Get this book here
Review:
This IT Books are suitable for all kinds of readers from IT or non-IT backgrounds. The author has written the book in an undeniably interesting way. It is a narrative piece that unfolds the challenges of an IT professional. The main character needs to organize the workflow. He also needs to manage communications across departments and serve other business functions. The author has simplistically addressed DevOps and IT-related principles.
Key Points:
- The readers learn about the three-way-mysterious philosophy: time management, organizational skills, and interdepartmental communications.
- IT Books teaches ways to improve IT organizations.
- It helps in problem-solving and saves time under deadlines and pressure.
