Philip O'Toole
Software engineer working on distributed systems and databases; creator of rqlite, the distributed database built on SQLite.
Philip O'Toole did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Recommends rcmnd
What they recommendrcmnd 6 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Becoming a Technical Leader Liked
Becoming a Technical Leader is both an interesting and subtle book. At times it feels like a self-help book, at other times a Machiavellian explanation of how programming teams really wok. But in the end it's sincere and mature, and wants to help. Weinberg's introspective style will appeal to many programmers, and it appealed to me. This book is useful because it talks about many of the practical issues of becoming a technical leader or manager within a team of developers — and from many unexpected viewpoints.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25
Peopleware Loved
But once you start to do so, it's a great book and probably the best one there is on programming management.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25
The Unix Programming Environment Recommends
The Unix Programming Environment is a book you can't read too soon. It's something I wish I'd come across years before I actually did. An authoritative and comprehensive manual for using Unix as a programmer, it clearly explains concepts such as inodes, hard and soft links, system calls, and the power of joining programs together via stdin and stdout. By the time I came across this book I already knew these concepts, but had never studied them before in one place, and in such a coherent manner.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25
Show 3 more
The C Programming Language Recommends
What can one say about this book, that hasn't been said already? Perhaps this: that of all the books written about programming, this has the highest information density of them all. And yet it's so pleasant to read. There is something about the tone of this book — the way the authors speak to you. They explain everything, and yet never seem patronizing or condescending. The joy they feel for their craft — it really does seem like this book comes from a time when programming was a craft — is unmistakable. Many of today's programmers — web developers, iOS developers, front-end engineers — may have no need to ever read this book. But for those who have not done so, and really want to improve as programmers, work through this book. It's a rite of passage.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25
Writing Solid Code Liked
This book had a big impact on me as young software developer. It was the first time I saw in print the principle "bugs that go away by themselves come back by themselves". It's something that I've often repeated to myself, and my team, if nothing else but to prepare us mentally for when that hard bug does come back. The chapter advising developers to "proactively step through your code during development, don't wait for the bug report" improved my productivity enormously, and I followed the practice for many years.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25
The Mythical Man-Month Loved
The amazing thing about The Mythical Man Month is that it doesn't feel dated, even though it was first published in 1975. Instead it simply feels like a group of programmers discussing the very same challenges the industry has today, with just different technology in use.
philipotoole.com 2016-11-25