{"id":1171,"date":"2014-06-14T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2014\/06\/14\/weekend-scripter-non-powershell-books-for-powershell-people\/"},"modified":"2014-06-14T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T00:01:00","slug":"weekend-scripter-non-powershell-books-for-powershell-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/weekend-scripter-non-powershell-books-for-powershell-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Scripter: Non-PowerShell Books for PowerShell People"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Summary<\/b>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, collects a list of cool book recommendations.\nMicrosoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I constantly find myself doing is reading. I try to read a lot of different things, fiction, non-fiction, classic literature, and technical. I am always cycling back and reading technical books. I find that I need to know more these days, and I have less time to come up to speed on various topics.\nAlthough my primary focus is on Windows PowerShell, I see the need to constantly be learning and reading about various technical topics. In this way, I guess I am a holistic Windows PowerShell scripter, something not entirely different than a holistic detective.\nI do have a nearly unlimited need to read and learn new stuff, but I do not have an unlimited budget or unlimited time. Therefore, I do not want to waste my resources on useless books. So I reached out to various experts for recommendations of great non-PowerShell books that might be of interest to Windows PowerShell people. Here are the results:\n<span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Jim Christopher<\/b><\/span>, Windows PowerShell MVP, suggests the following two books:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For XPath: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Essential-XML-Quick-Reference-Programmers\/dp\/0201740958\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401999486&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Essential+XML+Quick+Reference\" target=\"_blank\">Essential XML Quick Reference: A Programmer&#8217;s Reference to XML, XPath, XSLT, XML Schema, SOAP, and More <\/a>by Aaron Skonnard and Martin Gudgin <br \/> Dated, but by far the most used book on my shelf when it comes to XPath.<\/li>\n<li>For Regex: &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mastering-Regular-Expressions-Jeffrey-Friedl\/dp\/0596528124\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401999517&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Mastering+Regular+Expressions\" target=\"_blank\">Mastering Regular Expressions<\/a> by Jeffrey Friedl <br \/> Covers many languages, including the .NET flavor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Chris Bellee<\/b><\/span>, Microsoft PFE, and my good friend from Australia (also, literally the coolest person I know) sends the following recommendations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robmiles.com\/c-yellow-book\/\" target=\"_blank\">The C# Programming Yellow Book<\/a> by Rob Miles<br \/> I learned a lot about the C# language and designing solutions.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlineprogrammingbooks.com\/asp-net\/\" target=\"_blank\">ASP.NET Web Deployment using Visual Studio Step-by-Step<\/a> by Tom Dykstra<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Programming-Principles-Practice-Using-2nd\/dp\/0321992784\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401999419&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Programming%3A+Principles+and+Practice+using+C%2B%2B\" target=\"_blank\">Programming: Principles and Practice using C++<\/a> by Bjarne Stroutrup<br \/> An excellent introduction to computer science and C++.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software\/dp\/0735611319\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401999459&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Code%3A+The+Hidden+Language+of+Computer+Hardware+and+Software\" target=\"_blank\">Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software<\/a> by Charles Petzold<br \/> Beautifully describes the simplicity &amp; complexity of a computer.<\/li>\n<li>The MVC \/ C# examples on MSDN were also invaluable when I was developing some web apps that were hosted on Azure Web Sites recently.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Mike Kline<\/b><\/span>, Microsoft PFE, suggested the following books about Active Directory:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Learn-Active-Directory-Management-Lunches\/dp\/1617291196\/ref=la_B005TKXPQ2_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401930210&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">Learn Active Directory Management in a Month of Lunches<\/a> by Richard Siddaway<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Active-Directory-Designing-Deploying-Running\/dp\/1449320023\/ref=la_B008E07510_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401930252&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">Active Directory: Designing, Deploying, and Running Active Directory<\/a> by Brian Desmond, Joe Richards, Robbie Allen, and Alistair Lowe-Norris<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Active-Directory-Cookbook-Cookbooks-OReilly\/dp\/1449361420\/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=172H953E5M828HVF2NAF\" target=\"_blank\">Active Directory Cookbook<\/a> by Brian Svidergol and Robbie Allen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Tom Nolan<\/b><\/span>, Microsoft PFE, suggests the following books:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.oreilly.com\/product\/0636920027812.do\" target=\"_blank\">Head First C#<\/a> by Jennifer Greene and Andrew Stellman<br \/> This is hands down the best book I can recommend for anyone wanting to dig into .NET who isn&rsquo;t really a programmer type.&nbsp; It is also one of the best books for anyone who is a programmer type who appreciates visual\/immersive learning and doesn&rsquo;t know C# very well.&nbsp;I have read this book cover-to-cover and, even as a developer, I loved every bit of it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.oreilly.com\/product\/0636920024200.do\" target=\"_blank\">Programming Windows Store Apps with C#<\/a> by Matthew Baxter-Reynolds and Iris Classon<br \/> I think this one is really good because a lot of people, when learning programming, want to learn things that apply to something they are interested in.&nbsp;App development is definitely high on a lot of peoples&rsquo; lists. I haven&rsquo;t read this one cover-to-cover, but what I have paged through looks really good.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.com\/1430258365\" target=\"_blank\">Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Game Development<\/a> by Adam Dawes<br \/> I think game programming is another place that really tends to spark the interest of many, so I would be remiss to not include this one.&nbsp;I have read a fair chunk of it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.com\/1118311809\" target=\"_blank\">Beginning ASP.NET 4.5: in C# and VB<\/a> by Imar Spaanjaars<br \/> Some folks would prefer to go the path of learning to develop websites, so this is probably the best beginner book I would put on the list.&nbsp;Also, really great for web developers lacking .NET experience.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.com\/1118833031\" target=\"_blank\">Professional C# 5.0 and .NET 4.5.1<\/a> by Christian Nagel, Jay Glynn, and Morgan Skinner<br \/> For anyone who has some experience and wants the serious dive into things, this is a great book. It will require a bit more general .NET experience than the others, and it will not be as forgiving introducing topics before diving in, but it has a lot of good information.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Yung Chou<\/b><\/span>, Microsoft DPE, suggests:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoftpressstore.com\/store\/introducing-windows-azure-for-it-professionals-9780735682887\" target=\"_blank\">Introducing Windows Azure for IT Professionals<\/a> by Mitch Tulloch<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com\/ebooks\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Virtual Academy<\/a> has a ton of free e-books, which are available in PDF, EPub, and even MOBI format<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b><\/b><\/span>\n<span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Doug Finke<\/b><\/span>, Windows PowerShell MVP, says this book is how he learned to search XML:\n<span style=\"font-size:large\"><b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.oreilly.com\/product\/9780596003722.do\" target=\"_blank\">XSLT Cookbook<\/a> by Sal Mangano<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>Blain Barton<\/b><\/span>, Microsoft IT pro evangelist, provided this list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoftpressstore.com\/store\/windows-server-2012-r2-inside-out-volume-2-services-9780735682559\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Server 2012 R2 Inside Out Volume 2: Services, Security, &amp; Infrastructure<\/a> by William Stanek<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoftpressstore.com\/store\/microsoft-office-365-administration-inside-out-9780735678231\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Office 365 Administration Inside Out<\/a> by Anthony Puca, Julian Soh, and Marshall Copeland<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are some books that I (the Scripting Guy) have found helpful:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Essential-XML-Quick-Reference-Programmers\/dp\/0201740958\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402000365&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=essential+xml\" target=\"_blank\">Essential XML Quick Reference: A Programmer&#8217;s Reference to XML, XPath, XSLT, XML Schema, SOAP, and More<\/a> by Aaron Skonnard and Martin Gudgin<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction\/dp\/0735619670\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402000431&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=code+complete\" target=\"_blank\">Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction<\/a> by Steve McConnell<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Microsoft-Server-Fundamentals-Developer-Reference\/dp\/0735658145\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402000474&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=transact+sql+programming\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Fundamentals (Developer Reference)<\/a> by Itzik Ben-Gan<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Windows-Internals-Part-Developer-Reference\/dp\/0735648735\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402000704&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=windows+internals\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Internals, Part 1<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Windows-Internals-Part-Developer-Reference\/dp\/0735665877\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402000704&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=windows+internals\" target=\"_blank\">Windows Internals, Part 2<\/a> by Mark Russinovich, David Solomon, and Alex Ionescu<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I invite you to follow me on <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/scriptingguystwitter\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/scriptingguysfacebook\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.technet.commailto:scripter@microsoft.com\" target=\"_blank\">scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/scriptingforum\" target=\"_blank\">Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n<p><b>Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, collects a list of cool book recommendations. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I constantly find myself doing is reading. I try to read a lot of different things, fiction, non-fiction, classic literature, and technical. I am always cycling back and reading technical books. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[191,51,3,61,45],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-community","tag-getting-started","tag-scripting-guy","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, collects a list of cool book recommendations. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I constantly find myself doing is reading. I try to read a lot of different things, fiction, non-fiction, classic literature, and technical. I am always cycling back and reading technical books. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}