Reddit mentions of Learning SQL: Master SQL Fundamentals

The Stanford Algorithm book is complete overkill in my opinion do NOT read that book. That's insane. Read it when you've been doing programming for a while and have a grasp of how it even applies.

Here's my list, it's a "wanna be a decent junior" list:

• Computer Science Distilled
  
• Java/ C# / PHP/ JS (pick one)
  
• Do some Programming Challenges
  
• SQL
  
• Maybe build a small web app. Don't worry about structure so much, just build something simple.
  
• Applying UML: and Patterns: An Introduction to Object Oriented Anaysis and Design Iterative Development
  
• Head First Design Patterns
  
• Clean Architecture
  
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
  
• If you're interested in Web
  
• Soft Skills: Power of Habit , A Mind for Numbers , Productivity Project
  
  ​
  
  Reasoning: So, the first book is to give you a sense of all that's out there. It's short and sweet and primes you for what's ahead. It helps you understand most of the basic industry buzz words and whatnot. It answers a lot of unknown unknowns for a newbie.
  
  Next is just a list languages off the top of my head. But you can pick anything, seriously it's not a big deal. I did put Java first because that's the most popular and you'll like find a mountain of resources.
  
  Then after some focused practice, I suggest grabbing some SQL. You don't need to be an expert but you gotta know about DBs to some degree.
  
  Then I put an analysis book that's OOP focused. The nifty thing about that book, is it breaks into design patterns nicely with some very simple design patters to introduce you to design patterns and GRASP.
  
  Then I put in a legit Design Patterns book that explains and explores design patterns and principles associated with many of them.
  
  Now that you know how code is structured, you're ready for a conversation about Architecture. Clean architecture is a simple primer on the topic. Nothing too crazy, just preps you for the idea of architecture and dealing with it.
  
  Finally, refactoring is great for working devs. Often your early work will be focused on working with legacy code. Then knowing how to deal with those problems can be helpful.
  
  FINAL NOTE: Read the soft skills books first.
  
  The reason for reading the soft skills books first is it helps develop a mental framework for learning all the stuff.
  
  Good luck! I get this isn't strictly computer science and it's likely focused more toward Software Development. But I hope it helps. If it doesn't. My apologies.

I personally used John Walkenbach's books on VBA to learn over 10 years ago. They were tremendously helpful and good for the intermediate to advance VBA programmer so I'd recommend his VBA books (he also writes general books on advanced Excel techniques but for purposes of this discussion, I'd opt for his books that relate to solely VBA).

Knowing SQL also helps when pulling raw data from databases for use in custom reports and models. I used this to help me out with SQL, http://www.amazon.com/Learning-SQL-Alan-Beaulieu/dp/0596520832/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426696057&sr=1-3&keywords=SQL

Hope this helps.

I highly, highly recommend Learning SQL by O'Reilly. Good for newbies to learn the basics, and more intermediate people to learn advanced things like joins.

I've given this book to new IT folks, experienced, and even non-IT people who wanted to learn how to query a database.

Edit: It's written to be agnostic. MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle, or Postgres.

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-SQL-Alan-Beaulieu/dp/0596520832