Books complement courses. Check the edition on the product page before you buy.
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Choose the kind of practice you need
For a first programming book, compare a chapter that teaches syntax with a complete project. For architecture, inspect the trade-offs and assumptions rather than treating a technology list as a current installation guide.
The linked Python Crash Course and Automate editions are historical editions. Read their edition-specific documentation before following old installation instructions. The examples here describe contents, not tests or a ranking by Luctura.
- Syntax practice: explain a short program before copying a full project.
- Project practice: run an example, change one requirement, then test the result.
- Architecture practice: draw the service boundaries and explain what would happen if one service failed.
Writing and maintaining code
Books on how professional developers write, structure and maintain code.
Clean Code — Robert C. Martin
The Pragmatic Programmer — David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
Interviews and system design
Distinguish interview exercises from service architecture. The titles below address different tasks.
Cracking the Coding Interview — Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Building Microservices, 1st edition (2015) — Sam Newman
The first edition covers modelling services, integration, testing, deployment and monitoring of microservice systems. (Building Microservices — Sam Newman, 2015)
It follows a fictional company to show how a microservice architecture affects a domain, alongside discussion of splitting monolithic codebases. (Building Microservices — Sam Newman, 2015)
Python
Books for learning Python and going deeper into the language.
Python Crash Course, 2nd edition — Eric Matthes
The author says the second edition has been out of print since 2023 and is significantly out of date. Its resources are retained as an archive. (Python Crash Course, Second Edition — author archive)
The second edition includes an Alien Invasion game project using Pygame. (Python Crash Course 2e — official detailed contents)
Its web application project introduces Django, models and a Learning Log application. These are the contents of the second edition. (Python Crash Course 2e — official detailed contents)
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 1st edition — Al Sweigart
The first part covers Python programming basics; the second introduces automation tasks through project programs to study. (Automate the Boring Stuff — first-edition introduction)
The first-edition contents include reading and writing files, organising files, web scraping, Excel spreadsheets, PDF and Word documents, and CSV/JSON data. (Automate the Boring Stuff — first-edition contents)
Fluent Python — Luciano Ramalho
Sources and access details
Official sources read 29 October 2026. Descriptions concern the named resource, edition, model or learning format. They are not independent product tests or guarantees of learning or employment outcomes. Check current access, price and terms with the provider.