Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky

A collection of essays on software development written by one of the leading gurus in the field. The majority of the essays deal with the practice of programming and managing developers, especially within a small software company. They are interesting, pragmatic, relevant, authoritative and funny.

A couple of quotables:

... the history of the evolution of C++ can be described as a history of trying to plug the leaks in the string abstraction.

The idea of advertising is to lie without getting caught. Most companies when they run an advertising campaign, simply take the most unfortunate truth about their company, turn it upside down ("lie"), and drill that lie home.

All of the essays have previously been published on the author's web-site but the book also includes some new introductions and, besides, a book is much more convenient for reading in the bath, or on the train.