Warcraft Programming:

World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons
$39.99
I've written code in a lot of different languages, but had never really touched Lua (the language used to write WoW addons).

I picked up this book hoping that it would give me a good foundation on WoW addon creation, and it did. What I didn't expect was just how much I'd be going back to the book over and over as an API reference.

Although Blizzard keeps updating the WoW API, this books extensive reference section covers enough of the fundamentals, that I always start there.

I can't say that this book would be the best starting point for anyone who has never programmed before, but then again, creating addons for WoW isn't really an endeavour for anyone who hasn't programmed before.

However, that's what made this book so great for me. The Lua language and WoWs API are full of eccentricities and "gotchya"s. This book provided a really good "get up to speed quickly", and functions as an ongoing reference.

The authors also maintain a website that updates as the WoW API updates.

Beginning Lua with World of Warcraft Add-ons
$34.99
I'm not quite sure where to start on a review like this, so I'll just skip to the end: if you are seriously thinking of writing WoW add-ons, then make sure you read this book! Now that I've got that out of the way, let me go back and explain why.

There are three primary reasons why I would recommend this book to someone. First, the author of this book created Deadly Boss Mods, one of the most popular (and indispensable) add-ons available, which means that the knowledge he shares comes from experience. That experience comes in handy for navigating around those "gotchas" that have crept into the API over time. Second, the technical information he provides is both thorough and presented in an way that helps you understand the "why" and "how" of add-on development. For instance, the author waits until the end of the book to explain macros. This might seem a bit backwards until you read the rest of the book and realize just how much you need to know to make the most of the macro system. Third, this book is an excellent introduction to Lua, the scripting language used in WoW add-ons. The book provides a thorough understanding of Lua, meaning that the information you learn for writing WoW add-ons will be just as useful when you decide to write Lua-based add-ons for other applications (or when you just want to use Lua on its own).

Now, there were a few things about the book that I initially didn't like. First, the book is written in an informal, somewhat conversational style. As a result, I thought this was going to be a "For Dummies" type of book. After a few chapters, it becomes clear that this book is definitely not for dummies and the relaxed style ends up making the information very accessible. Second, one of the larger add-ons that the author builds is a "Texas Hold-Em" client/server. Since I had no intention of writing this kind of add-on (and Texas Hold-Em is a little dated), I thought I was in for several chapters of useless information. Again, after reading just a small way into that section, it became clear that the internal workings of the add-on apply to all large, multi-user add-ons. The "hold-em" part of the add-on ends up being entirely secondary. Do not skip over this add-on!

So if, after all of this, you are still thinking to yourself that you can just read some online resources, dissect a few existing mods, then sit down and write your own, think again. Source code will not provide the knowledge you need to write high-quality, professional mods. This book provides that knowledge.

Hacking World of Warcraft (ExtremeTech)
$29.99
I bought this book and two others to create a couple of interfaces for things I do often.

This book referenced many of the existing add-on applications, and some basic calls. I could have used this info a year ago when I started, but I had already pass beyond this info with stuff from some of the sites listed here. Also two of the links I tried had already either changed or gone dark, so my take is the printed reference does have a time-line.

I did find it well written, and organized, and had I seen this a year ago it would have been ideal.

Lua Programming Gems
$44.90
This collection of articles record some of the existing wisdom and practice on how to program well in Lua. In well-written articles that go much beyond the brief informal exchange of tips in the mailing list or the wiki, the authors share their mastery of all aspects of Lua programming, elementary and advanced. The articles cover a wide spectrum of areas and approaches, with authors from both the industry and academia and titles about game programming, programming techniques, embedding and extending, algorithms and data structures, and design techniques.