[Waterluvian]

“This book is a must-read for any serious software engineer.”

This isn’t necessarily wrong but it always reminds me of the era when I had severe impostor syndrome. I haven’t read any of these books and I’m doing very well. I guess I’m just not serious enough. :)

[jxf]

I tend to interpret these as not "if you don't read this, you're not a serious software engineer", but rather "if you're a software engineer, you are more likely to enjoy this book".

[NiloCK]

ahem: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119

[jxf]

Fortunately, this RFC only applies to other IETF standards-track documents, and not to lists of books you might be interested in reading. :)

[Sytten]

Those comments always come off as extremely pretentious to me. There is not a single way to be “serious" and anybody telling otherwise just has a big ego...

[Apocryphon]

Not only pretentious, woefully unhip. SICP was popular on HN for as long as the site has been around, everyone knows it's worth reading. pg wrote an Amazon review about it in 2000.

[xedrac]

I have worked through much of the SICP book, and loved it. I think the author is just trying to emphasize that it's a really great book. Not that it's some sort of initiation that you must go through before you're a "real" software engineer.