[kludgemaker]

* Getting Real, by 37signals: Gave me confidence to side-step a lot of the bs I saw in software development practice

* The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks: Provided an argument against inexperienced managers who errantly assert that they need more developers to get projects done quicker; perhaps more importantly, it gives as a model for a programming team with a "chief programmer" to whom these managers need to report

* The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander: Taught me the original (perhaps better) concept of design patterns, which helped in talking to colleagues about the parts of software we build and reuse

* JavaScript: the Good Parts, Douglas Crockford: Led me to a solid understanding of how to make good use a crummy scripting language that was only really meant to glue DOM behavior to Java applets