Educational literature (textbooks, educational-methodical manuals) is one of the main means of presenting a material to students. It forms the basis for the formation of competences of educational institution's graduates, on the basis of their independent acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities in their professional field, and experience of creative activity. Therefore, the level of university graduates' education, the quality of vocational education they receive, and hence their competitiveness in the labor market, largely depends on the quality of educational literature. 

IT educational literature is a very broad concept that includes both professional literature for IT professionals and books for beginners, i.e. people just mastering the computer and the Internet.

There is a program educational literature, i.e. literature for IT students in a particular discipline, and educational literature for those who study this field of knowledge on their own or strive for continuous excellence. After all, as you know, one of the fundamental commandments of a successful programmer is to never stop learning, which is invariably associated with reading professional literature. 

Professional literature for those who study IT covers such topics as databases and DBMS, design, software development and testing, system administration, languages, techniques and technology programming, computer graphics and web design, operating systems, etc.

When choosing literature, it is important to understand that in the age of IT-technologies a lot of pseudo-scientific literature appeared. Sometimes it is difficult to understand the quality of the material because of the rich choice, and there is no one to ask for advice. Often young people, developing in the IT sphere, are interested in what successful IT specialists read? What books do they recommend? The Pro-Papers turned to its experts for clarification and collected useful advice on a selection of educational literature for IT specialists and those who are just studying.

So, the IT-sphere is updated every year with new subject areas (for example, blockchain (cryptoindustry), machine learning, Internet of things (IoT)), programming languages ​​(Scala, Swift, Go, Kotlin, Rust, Solidity), frameworks to existing programming languages and professions (smart contract developer, blockchain engineer, big data analyst, Go or Swift developers, etc.).

In order to be constantly on the crest of the wave, specialists need to continuously learn new things. Books on IT, books with successful cases of industry leaders, articles on Internet resources, IT courses and specialized conferences help in the development and expansion of knowledge. Often, IT specialists read the literature in the original language, since foreign publishers set trends and usually translated books appear with a decent time delay.

IT-specialists read first of all, specialized materials and books on their subject area. If you are a Ruby, you will certainly know the "Ruby Path" book, if you are an experienced rubist, you must have read "Metaprogramming in Ruby 2" and "Effective Testing with RSpec 3", if you are a Go programmer, you probably mastered "Go Programming Language". There are also bestsellers on project management methodologies, team management or testing tools for project managers and testers.

Our experts cited the example of a relatively new 3 books, which, as it seems to us, are useful to read for IT-specialists regardless of specialization.

Git for a Professional Programmer

 

For over a decade, any teamwork with code in IT companies has been conducted in the version control system. Every developer knows about the Github service or analogues (Gitlab, Bitbucket). Confident use of such a tool as a version control system allows improving the speed of both personal and team work on a project. The book "Git for a professional programmer" will allow you to feel like a duck to water when working with versioned code. The book is useful not only to programmers, but also testers and project managers.

Grokking Algorithms

 

The book is about the basic, commonly used algorithms, approaches and data structures. The basic data structures and algorithms are given in the book, in detail and clearly written, and even illustrated with excellent examples. The book is suitable for beginners (not necessarily "mathematical mindset"), as well as developers with experience who want to refresh the memory of the basics that have been forgotten.

How Does Google Work

 

Excellent book, that promotes honesty, initiative and openness to everything new. Moreover, the initiative should not be punished in case of failure (as an example, an unsuccessful google wave project is given). The Google company encourages its employees to act - as in the modern world hypothesis testing is cheap both in time and in money. We need to check more and make prototypes. The ideology of Google within the framework of project selection is to support strong projects, to give up weak projects as early as possible, even if many resources have already been invested.

For ordinary users who want to acquire or improve computer skills, there are tutorials for working on the Internet or office programs.

It is important to remember that books on IT technologies are usually extremely practical, and therefore you need to "become a skilled hand" so that the material correctly settles in your head. So, if you only begin to study the IT sphere, remember that only with practice you can become a skilled hand at IT.

It is worth to experience examples from the book immediately in the process of reading. If a technology is completely new to you and you have never met it either in practice or in theory, then most likely you will not understand all the information in the book for the first time. That is why it is recommended to return to the book again after the first reading and some practice.

Read, learn and do not be afraid to discover something new. Only by working on yourself you can become a professional in your field.

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With the continuous growth of the field management service industry, a commercial contractor would need a partner to keep up with a competitive market. Choosing the right application or software can drastically transform your position in the market. However, with the hundreds of options available, figuring out which to use can be quite difficult.

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To make decision making easier, we've compiled six must-haves for the best field service contractor app for your business.

1. User-friendly and organized

Using a field service app eliminates the chances of lost, sloppy, or even disorganized paperwork. After all, you'll use the app to sort your business out to avoid misunderstandings and mistakes. Your chosen app should then be able to organize and host relevant documents and information that your technicians will need.

The field service app should also be user-friendly. Technicians shouldn't find navigating the app confusing and instead help them manage their tasks better. If not, they might resort to handwritten paperwork which can bring back issues.

2. Real-time access to information

Delays and mistakes happen when your technicians don't have access to key information when they need it. This is why it's important that your field service app allows your technicians to access key information about the job and customers real-time.

The app should contain details about the current project as well as previous records that can help technicians perform their job. This way, they can create a trusting relationship with the customer, increasing their satisfaction.

3. Seamless communication

As teams are deployed to various locations, communication becomes difficult. When this happens, collaboration between your back-office and field staff becomes challenging, causing misunderstandings among teams.

You can prevent such events by choosing an app with centralized and seamless communication channels. Using these channels allow teams to become updated with any information or clarify any issues that may cause problems in the project.

4. Sales enablement

Field staff have a different expertise compared to your salespeople. However, when your field service app has sales enablement features, they can offer solutions to every client problem and increase revenue without sounding too "salesy".

5. Enabling accountability

Accountability is one of the concerns on field service work. After all, you aren't there to oversee teams perform their work, making you think whether they've followed SOPs and best practices.

However, a well-designed app for your field service business has features aimed to foster accountability among your staff. This way, you can breathe easier knowing your staff can perform their jobs well and provide clients with the best customer service possible.

6. Enhanced customer experience

As a business, you want to provide customers with the best experience possible. What they say about you will affect your reputation which has a lasting impact on your revenue.

It's best that your app of choice allows for convenient and seamless customer experience. This allows clients to easily navigate and use the app to complete transactions in just a few clicks.

Scale your business today

Contrary to what many people think, technology isn't an enemy of businesses. In fact, using technology and apps has helped businesses streamline their operations. This helped many owners and managers to save costs in the long run and increase their revenue. Therefore, it's important that businesses find the best app for their needs and processes to prevent any mishaps while everyone's in the field.

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