Technical 28 Feb 2004 09:35 pm
The Pragmatic Programmer
The Pragmatic Programmer - From Journeyman to Master
Andrew Hunt & David Thomas
I recommend this book to any programmers out there, specially those who are early in their careers. It contains chapters dedicated to several topics related to the craft of programming, and each one of them will make you a better programmer.
You certainly won’t learn how to program from this book. No language is taught in it, and it expects that you already know how to program and are familiar with the usual cycle of software development. You will probably already know several of the techniques it discusses, or you will at least have heard of them, even if you don’t follow them. Still, the book is written in a way that encourages you — nay, it almost physically pushes you — to go make them part of your regular job.
In a way, the essence of the book is in the pull-out card included right before the back cover: the 70 “tips” that are sprinkled throughout the text, containing all of the combined wisdom of the authors in easy-to-swallow nuggets. For example. tip 49: “test your software, or your users will”. Or my favourite, tip 25: “don’t panic when debugging”. The list of tips is freely available from their website, by the way.
But you shouldn’t read just the tips; the text of the book gives out much more detail, in an easy and fun way, with lots of real-life examples. It will sound like a cliché, but I really wish I had read this book some ten years ago, and I do intend to make sure that all programmers who work with me read it.
So, if you care about your craft (which, by the way, is tip number 1), go get this book or find someone who already has it. In the meantime, you can read some excerpts at the afore-mentioned website.
